In many columns we have written about children and youth sports, I have stressed the ideal advocated by Toby’s Foundation – “let us help our children play” and not prematurely expose them to rigid competitions influenced by adult values. Often, nothing is really at stake but the adult egos of stage parents, talent managers and ambitious sports officials. I had always emphasized that children should enjoy sports and not be the excuse for abusing and putting more meaning into the saying “there’s nothing like starting them young”.
Let us not follow the example of other countries under authoritarian and tyrannical rule, which practically kidnap from their parents boys and girls barely six years old to undergo training that is practically no different from child labor – all for the honor and glory of the motherland.
In free and democratic societies, children prematurely undergo rigid training and experience tremendous pressure from their parents who see their children paving the way to the fame and money path. Failure to perform by the children “in accordance with their potential or to underperform” can expose these children to ridicule and to ostracism by their peers and worse. Such ridicule and ostracism leads to fits of depression, loss of self-confidence and feelings of low self-worth and of being failure for letting their parents down by failing to meet expectations “especially after tons of money was spent to get the children the best individualized coaching”.
This drive for children to “compete, to win no matter what, to whip the other team, etc.” does not only happen in sports but also in other areas, particularly in education.
An article (“Career Program for Toddlers”) written by a good friend and classmate at the Asian Institute of Management, Vancouver-based Vic Lorenzo, is very instructive and informative with respect to the “younger generation now being pushed to achieve more and to compete more.” Lorenzo says that (intense competition) was previously at the graduate school level, then university, then high school, grade school and now at the pre-school age level.”
Lorenzo states at the outset perhaps apologetically that one may laugh at the title of his article but he recently watched a documentary entitled “Hyper Parents and Coddled Kids”. Lorenzo narrates that at one time, the British Parliament passed a resolution recommending a program for a career plan for young kids. In Shanghai, they have, according to Lorenzo, “an Early MBA program for children.”
According to Lorenzo, Carl Honore, who now lives in London and is the author of “Under Pressure”, said in the documentary that when a father attended the teacher consultation in the school of his young son, the teacher said that his son was doing well in arts: “He is very gifted and the teacher showed his art work that was displayed on the board.” Wow, the magic word “gifted”.
Lorenzo continues to state that when the Dad got home, he immediately searched the internet for tutors and other short programs in which his son can enroll. His goal: achieve greater heights in the Arts! Gifted and Achievement are the two key words that ring a bell in parents’ ears. With these words in mind, parents pack schedules of their children with extra lessons to the point other children may even need an appointment to play with the busy kid. A girl goes from school to a piano lesson then the following day from school to a ballet school. This is, according to Lorenzo, the reason why Baby Einstein books became a hit. He says, we want our kids to immediately become Einsteins in the family.
Lorenzo says parents are passing on to their children the attitude of not accepting failure or defeat: “This can’t be. You are gifted. You can achieve your dreams. Dream big and hit it. You can be a Wall Street whiz kid”. Lorenzo continues: the kid grows up to be a trader in Wall Street and the pressure to achieve and fulfill his parents’ dreams is always there in his mind. The kid says he wants to be the best stock trader. Reality sets in and the kid turned trader now cheats in order to achieve his (rather, his parents) goal. But then he turns out to be a mini-Madoff!”
Young university students, according to Lorenzo, were convened and they talked about the pressures that parents brought to bear on them and the anxiety and the depression they felt because of their failure to meet their parents’ expectations. They said they no longer have peace of mind. Ninety-eight percent is not enough. So they ask themselves, how can I get that two percent to make 100 percent? The student is now pressured to cheat and cut corners in order to attain the goal and please his parents who have spent good money on him.
We continue next week about lost childhood and the freedom to be oneself.