by Nurse Jenna
I have been glued to the television every night to watch the Olympics, especially women’s gymnastics...or should we call it girls'? I’m sure everyone has heard the talk that the Chinese have falsified the passport documents of their gymnasts so that it legitimizes the age of their athletes, who must be 16 years old this year to compete. While some of the accusations have been outright and some have been more veiled, it is difficult to believe that some of these tiny girls, who have been hand-picked and trained since 3 years of age, could even be approaching the age of 16. While this does not take away from the fact that they genuinely earned the team gold medal, I believe it does bring up a lot of the social and political machinations of the Chinese government that originally led some to believe the United States and other countries should boycott the 2008 Olympics.
I was a gymnast as a child and take a particular interest in the matter of being a young girl in a tough sport. I was at practice 6 days a week, 4-5 hours a day at the peak of my “career.” I was not even an elite gymnast. I was never forced by my country, or even my parents, but I felt the pressure to perform nonetheless. You begin to feel you are letting others down and letting yourself down once you have been programmed that a huge amount of your worth revolves around how well you do at a given meet, or routine. This is not just true for gymnastics, but any sport, musical pursuit, or other high-stress extra-curricular activity.
Do you think there is a fine line between encouraging your children and pushing them too hard? Do you think parents (or countries) should be deciding children's talents at such a young age?
Comments (8)
It's tough. My husband talks about hoe his parents shied on the side of sometimes not even being encouraging about things, b/c they didn't want to be pushy. I'd like to pass on to my son the idea that he should try his best at whatever he does, and whatever that turns out to be is great. Success should be measured by the effort you put into it, rather than compared to how others do against you.
It's simple. When they say I don't want to do this no more, you don't push. I'm not sure push is even a good term to use in this situation. Encourage. Encouragement can always be the difference between dropping out and moving on. Do we as parents tend to cross that line? Yeah because most of the time, we see things in our children that we haven't seen ourselves. I personally let my children try any and everything they want to and when they want to quit, I make sure to give them the room to make their own decisions. Because ultimately, it's their life and not mine.
My hubby and I have been talking about this a lot lately. As our son is growing up and we're beginning to see some natural talents in him, we're asking ourselves what that means to us. It isn't even just about him, either. We have another daughter and plan to have more kids. If he seems to excel in a certain aspect of his life, how much do we sacrifice things in the rest of the family to allow him to have all of the opportunities that he can? I never want one of my kids growing up and saying "if only I was allowed that opportunity..." but on the other hand, I don't know that I want all of the lives in our family to be dictated my a certain person's interests. Usually, someone has to end up sacrificing something!
I think that everyone has to take it a day at a time, and continually be evaluating the pros and cons of the decisions that are being made - it isn't always easy though!
Definitely. I wonder if in the end it is even worth it. Wasn't it like that for ice skating some time ago? The country would push the skaters to win the metals, but they would get no recognition for the work they put in...the basically lived ice skating and was in confinement as they trained....I don't plan on signing my daughter up for any kind of organized activities until she wants to...if that. I think there is way too much pressure, to be involved and to perform well.
Sometimes, it isn't the parents who pressure the child, it's the child herself. That's how it was for me. I did not want to fail. I wanted to excell. My parents thought it was great, and wouldn't have wanted me to get bad grades, but a lot of the pressure was from myself.
I think when something becomes more important for the parents than it does for the kids, and it isn't fun for the kids anymore, then it's pushing. (This is regarding extracurricular activities, not school-related activities.)
I recently ran into something like this with my parents.
Kids should be able to quit something they once loved- if they loathe the very idea of it anymore. If your child is willing to fight you to get out of it- if they're miserable just at the mention of the activity- let them quit. Their happiness is always more important than what they do in life.
pushy parents suck. Parents tend to think their kids are better than they are, and that hurts. I'm not an "honors student" but my parents want me to take hard classes and won't accept less than a B. They tell me I can do better than that, but I can't and it hurts that they think my best work isn't good enough.