<p>“Speaking about crazy parents being a new syndrome, I just read that Anne Sinclair (of DSK fame) went to a school where the mothers attended all classes to monitor the education and progress of their children.”</p>
<p>wow! that would not have been allowed to happen at my DS’s school, thank God! How in the world are these kids going to be allowed to learn on their own, with Mommy watching?</p>
<p>“Ohh, that’s a shame, that shot looked like it was going in…”
“That’s the third time this game that kid missed the same shot. Why is he starting? He’s lousy.”</p>
<p>“My son applied to XYZ.”
“I heard Bethany(who is not present)'s son scored 1850 on the SAT, and is trying to get into XYZ.”</p>
<p>“Ohh! That was a great race your daughter ran! Was that a PR?”
“Ohh! That was a great race your daughter ran! That is a PR for her.”</p>
<p>“Honey, you are running against the state record holder in the next meet. Be sure to run your own race and not be drawn into coming out of the blocks too fast.”
“My daughter says one of the girls on her relay team is a slacker. I think that kid shouldn’t be on the relay team, she’s holding the others back.”</p>
<p>"My kid is really struggling with Mr. J’s honor’s Geometry. Are your kids also having problems?
“Ann told me her son failed the midterm in Mr.J’s Geometry class. How are your kids doing?”</p>
<p>Some of these statements are more appropriate than others.</p>
<p>Always mocking, PG. You really don’t get how passive and dispassionate you can be and still pick up information. I could glance at our honor roll for one quick second (it’s hanging in front of the main office where I stand when waiting to sign D out for a doctor’s appointment) and know whether any of the children of my friends and acquaintances were on it. Why? Because most of my friends are not Indian or Chinese, and 90% of the honor roll is. </p>
<p>I sometimes deliberately seek out athletic information because it can help my child. I don’t try to pick up academic information, because there’s no similar benefit. Knowing Sally is on the honor roll doesn’t help my child get on it if she isn’t.</p>
<p>There’s a crazy mom at my kids’ school who is at the school every day, very involved in the PTA, and who also does things like posting on Facebook:
“I am so proud of my snookums. He got a 2230 on his SAT’s! I couldn’t believe it! That’s in the 99th percentile!”</p>
<p>To my way of thinking, if you overshare that much, you probably do deserve to be talked about and appear to be want to be talked about. But I really have two issues:
<p>"In this way, they save face and justify their non-participation in the rat-race without having to admit it’s because of a lack of ability or an unwillingness to put in the required effort. "</p>
<p>Justify to whom? You aren’t understanding … no one has to justify anything to anybody. It doesn’t matter if I’m prepping my kids for East Nowheresville State or HYPSM, there is no other parent in the school who needs to concern herself with that or to whom I need to justify anything.</p>
<p>“Also, if Parent A appears to be more involved and knowledgeable than Parent B, and has higher expectations for her child than Parent B, and Child A publicly does better than Child B, then Parent A can become a target. Parent B may say, “Maybe Child A is really smart/fast/musical/etc., but her mother is ‘crazy’ and I am just not going to be like that” and thus feels better.”</p>
<p>Again with “target.” Can you not conceptualize that Child A and Child B (and by extension Parent A and Parent B) are not in competition? Can you genuinely not understand if that I’m Parent B, I have no other reaction to Child A’s success other than “good for them” - I don’t have to badmouth Parent A or “make Parent A a target” to make myself feel better since there’s nothing for me to feel bad about in the first place? </p>
<p>Of course I can conceptualize that YOU and others like you don’t feel any competition. Can you conceptualize that there are plenty of people who are different than you and who view the world differently? This is especially the case in the world of individual sports, where differences in performance are objective and obvious. I may seem competitive to you, but as far as sports go, our experience has mostly been other people actively competing with us, not the other way around. When your kid is the one to beat, believe me, you feel that vibe. And yes, the ones to beat do have a target on their backs. </p>
<p>I feel as though several people are not reading what other people are actually saying, and are missing nuances. Gfg, I sincerely doubt anyone is disagreeing with the value and fun of statistical analysis in sports. But some people are drawing a line when a team parent is looking too closely at other people’s children, in ways that are not directly relevant to the sport. And another line gets crossed when some random parent has kept track of the stats of kids on the team, and comments on them. I’m not talking about someone who is keeping stats for the coach, or keeping stats for her own kid, or keeping track of other teams’ best players, or the times of other runners from other teams. </p>
<p>But if a parent is so invested that she is keeping stats on her child’s teammates, voicing opinions about other kids on the team, and spending time on the sidelines talking about other kids academic stats, that crosses a line. </p>
<p>Maybe you have a photographic memory and statistics just collect in your head. That doesn’t mean it is appropriate to discuss the stats of kids who are not your own with other parents. Again, I’m not talking about general comments like, “She’s having a great season.” </p>
<p>We had a situation like that, where a couple of parents were discussing a player (not the child of either of them) on the sidelines, during a high school varsity practice. What was being said was not complimentary. The player heard the discussion and was upset. The next day the coach called a parent meeting and discussed the fact that what those parents had done was considered bullying, and that the coach was not about to allow parental behavior like that. That coach’s philosophy was one of inclusion, support and positive behavior on the field and in the stands. By the way, it was the coach’s first year, and she turned a mediocre team into state champions in her first season.</p>
<p>I’d say that talking about a team mate of your daughter’s, calling the child a slacker, and saying she shouldn’t be a part of the relay team, would also be considered bullying, if the “slacker” ever got wind of it. And what in the world gives you the right to decide who is a slacker? Or do you know everything about the “slacker”'s homelife, mental health issues, or any of the myriad other reasons she might not be giving 100%?</p>
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<p>But this appears to be yet another strawman here. No one was saying that a team parent was looking too closely. They may be aware of it, but if a parent knows about Sally’'s GPA, AP results, grades, etc, it is because Sally or her parents decided to share it. People seem to be then upset that someone actually knows that info.</p>
<p>I do see it differently. I love hearing where the kids are going to college, if they are playing their sport, if they get an award or honor. We moved away from their grade school friends, but it’s fun to turn on the computer and learn one is going to Cornell or Iowa, that a girl from middle school got a President’s Award.</p>
<p>Just to be clear, neither I nor my children have ever said anything negative about a teammate at a meet, to other kids, or to other parents. My child has, however, complained to me privately at home about kids skipping out on training and risking disqualification of her relay due to rule-breaking. That behavior affects the team as a whole and my D individually, and I don’t think she is wrong to be unhappy about it. D recently asked the coach to train with a “faster” training group, in order to tactfully try to avoid the problem of her group not following the coach’s directions. She did not tattle on anyone, though.</p>
<p>Let me also comment that the better athletes are subject to far more criticism than their less-talented teammates. For one thing, people start to just expect them to always do well and help the team win, and can get downright angry if these better kids don’t perform as well as they “should.” Also, some parents and kids do get jealous of the better athletes and start to nitpick their performance. That just happened yesterday. In my hearing, a kid criticized the way my D was running her race. That is wrong, I know how it feels, and I would not do it to others. </p>
<p>I did not want to say this, but to avoid confusion and more criticism, I will explain that currently my D has the top times in 3 events for her team. Thus I am not following the times of her teammates to help D compete with them; she’s already a good bit better than they are. I like the sport, I like to watch the team’s trajectory, and when I have to be there for hours, timing races is one way to make it more interesting. Also, as the parent of the kid who’s beating my friends’ kids, I am in a tricky place of finding the right amount of support of other kids. It’s not easy. I have said, “Sally had a great race today,” and then had the parent look embarrassed and say, “Well, not compared to your D.” But when they are acknowledging my D, it’s feels in bad form not to acknowledge their child’s good effort too. </p>
<p>^ When another child is not finishing near the front or earning points or medals, the only way to compliment them is to notice an improvement. But then that’s problematic too…</p>
<p>I appreciate that, GFG. One year we had a super fast xc runner, just a real star. (not my kid btw) He was like a one name celebrity in town, like Cher. We all rooted for him and wanted him to win state. I am sure there was a lot of pressure, even though we meant to be supportive.</p>
<p>I will give props to the star and his mom. He was gracious to everyone. She was uncomfortable with all the praise, and would say thank you and then change the subject, often to talk about YOUR kid and how wonderful he is. </p>
<p>eastcoastcrazy, I think you are mixing some things up. I said that parents are talking to other parents about their own kids’ academic stuff while sitting in the bleachers, not the stats of other people’s children. I have never heard parents publicly discussing the academic stats of kids not their own, beyond general “he’s really smart” type of comments I only mentioned those conversations–which just happened to have taken place at a sporting event but which can and do occur elsewhere–to explain to posters like PG how parents learn such information without trying. When a parent comments to the group of other moms that her D Sally’s SAT score was better than expected and says what it was, that is how other people now know what score Sally got. . As for athletic stats, the other moms usually don’t know or care, hence the reason I look “crazy” for knowing Sally ran especially well that day.</p>
<p>So sorry about that, gfg. You’re right, I should have gone back to re-read that part of the thread. </p>
<p>Time to pop some popcorn and pull up a chair…</p>
<p>" do see it differently. I love hearing where the kids are going to college, if they are playing their sport, if they get an award or honor. We moved away from their grade school friends, but it’s fun to turn on the computer and learn one is going to Cornell or Iowa, that a girl from middle school got a President’s Award. "</p>
<p>No one - absolutely no one - has said otherwise!</p>
<p>I never mentioned my son’s scores, or GPA, etc. to anyone. I discussed with my son (10 years ago) why it is better to just say “I did well” than to offer numbers. No one , besides his GC, knows the actual #s. I feel strongly that anything personal is never to be shared; people love to share ‘secrets’. A g/f tells her spouse, and he doesn’t respect the privacy, and shares with others, who have no sense of privacy. I am a die hard believer in confidentiality, and will be buried with all sorts of confidences, be that as it may. </p>
<p>^^ you said, PG, that you don’t even remember where the classmates of your kids are headed. Poof, it’s out of your mind. It didn’t sound like you cared at all if the Val is headed to USC in LA or in South Carolina, much less remember it.</p>
<p>I enjoy hearing about their awards, GPAs, honors - even if they are for sports. And I remember where they are headed, because I’m not senile yet.</p>
<p>Almost as if on cue, LOL, D came home from track practice today and said the coach just posted a list in the locker room of each of their names and how many points they have so far toward getting varsity status. You earn points when you place first, second or third in a dual meet, or top 6 in higher level meet (I think). So this list is a more or less a ranking of the athletes. I was really surprised to hear this, as it seems too un-PC for how the school usually handles things. The coach had always given a handout season summary and performance list at the team banquet, but if they did this before, I didn’t hear of it. Anyway, just thought I’d mention this to support the claim that athletic stats are viewed as public information. </p>
<p>Even in team sports like basketball and volleyball, all of this stuff is common knowledge and public information. Both of my kids were regional or all state players. This stuff gets in the papers, gets “high fives”, etc. in the papers for great performances. If you play well, you get noticed. I don’t see anything creepy about it at all. </p>
<p>My kids also played a lot of baseball growing up. One of the kids my youngest played with for years is in the Minor Leagues. A kid my oldest played varsity basketball with is in the NFL ( he also played football). I am thrilled for them and watched them play for years. What is wrong with being happy for them and wishing them well? I’ve run into the parents and grandparents of the baseball kid, who is a pitcher, and I ask them about him. Why wouldn’t I? I like these kids and their families and are happy for their success.</p>