Jane

I think your assessment is spot on but only for a proportion of our current parents.

The generation you are assessing are the Grandchildren of the 'Baby Boomers'. Really what did we expect? What sort of parents are they who have taken their osmotic lessons on parenthood from their totally self-absorbed and spoilled 'baby-boomer' parents?

I was of the generation immediately following those 'boomers'. I am revelling in the departure and successes of my 'kiddies' in much the same way my parents revelled in my departure, my successes and my failures. Though I'm sure I detected in them a well hidden sense of relief, in their demeanours...often ... during our separation. The same relief, from the burden and stresses of parenthood, that I am trying to disguise, as non-chalance, and desperately trying to hide from my 'kiddies'. I'd hate them to know I'm actually enjoying their departures.

Keith

Not only are parents often overprotective of their "little darlings", but teachers have "seen it all".

Teachers feel they cannot touch their charges for fear of prosecution. Parents insist that teachers "treat their little darling with 'respect'".

We have a situation now where practically *any* "behavioural issue" becomes a basis for pointing the finger at the parents and expecting them to "resolve it" - tantamount to demanding they have their child sedated. And this is largely coming from *other parents*!

When a child *is* genuinely gifted, no one believes it anymore. Besides, resources "have already been allocated to *identified* schools with SHIP programs", etc, etc. Send your brat there (because that is *always* "convenient")

Many of these 'helicopter parents' actually fly in, drop the kid off, and fly off - expecting teachers to provide a child-minding service for them ... "Oh, and teach them *everything* while you're at it. Thanks." Convenience is king.

There are very few parents out there now, there are however quite a few "big people who have bred". It's hard to call some of them adults. Owning a 4WD does not equal mature.

Parenting is even rarer than the so-called 'parenting skills'. Having a child is a responsibility, not a right.

Liked the article.

If I might add we have also, like everything else, commodifed children; we have so few of them the demand on the obstetrician is to make sure its a bloody good one and if its flawed in any way one sues.

So we over value them and place extraordinary pressures on them to perform - in order for them to get ahead is usually the tale but more often than not it is to live part of our lives vicariously through them or just bask in their glory - when those expectations of ours are not meant the poor kid cops it.

I would not be a kid today for quids (unless of course I was my own parent)

As the P&C President at a Selective High School, I get to talk to the new Year 7 parents every year. Same speech "your kids have always come 1st or 2nd in their class. This year one of your kids will be 150th - half of them will be below 75th. How will they cope - how will you cope? Only by refining your concept of success".

Success is not merely academic, but has whole host of possible parameters. I'm leaning more and more to the concept of "personal best". It doesn't matter what any other child does, if this (my) child does the best she/he ever has at this endeavour (academic, cultural, sporting, whatever), then this is truly SUCCESS and needs to be celebrated wholeheartedly.

On another tangent, whatever happened to the good old values of a "liberal education"?

I swore that my children would never do without any of the things I really needed and never got. At the same time, one of my most "cutting"comments about someone is that "they've never gone without a meal in their life".

Well, guess what Kevin. You (I) have raised three children who never went without a meal in their life. They have no idea how to respond to real hardship, no sense of proportion of what "life owes them". They're really nice young people but they are a pain in the bum in terms of their unrealistic expectations of what society owes them and their children.

So I read articles like this with wry amusement. We create a society and its expectations (intentionally or unintentionally) and then bemoan the fact that our children live up (or down) to our expectations.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Hopefully it's a dialectic, where eventually either parents or, more probably, their children are disabused by real life of the idea that they're super special in time to come to a more realistic approach to educating and raising the next generation.

In the meantime, I'll love my children and keep quiet about the guilt I feel about how poorly I really raised them.

Regards

Kevin

Personally Jane I think that your friend that grew impatient and asked the teacher how she was going to handle the fact that all the 10-year-olds in her new class were used to coming in the top two or three of their class and, that as only two or three of them could do the same in this class, how did she intend to handle the inevitable blow to the children’s self esteem is the one with the problem.

The only person caught up in the “specialness and glory of their child” was your friend as she is the only one for which the thought of her daughter no longer coming first was something that warranted bringing up. Children are not stupid they realise that when they are in Opportunity Class they are being compared with the best.

What parents want is to be treated with respect and for their children to be treated with respect regardless of their ability and for their educational needs to be met and addressed at whatever level is required and appropriate as that sends the message that it is okay to be different.

I think that making everybody the same and aiming for ordinary is not a very good goal for our children to aspire to.

Some people have difficultly understanding that whilst one's children might be the dearest things in the world and worthy of attention from their parents, that doesn't mean that they are worthy of an easy or free ride through life. The consequences of this are not hard to see, with a generation which a greater sense of entitlement and self-worth than befits them, and I know that because i'm part of that generation.

Whether it's them stopping traffic to "demand" their "right" to a student allowance equal to the minimum wage, being unwilling to accept duty and responsibility in their lives until they are well and truly adults, or simply being unwilling to serve their community in things such as the armed forces, this current generation has some serious misconceptions of entitlements. The Victorian ideas of public service, civic duty and the betterment of man achieved by the fulfilling of duty, whilst alive in many parts of the community, are lacking in most.

The question is, when it comes the day that we don't have enough soldiers for our own defence, and the public purse cannot stretch to pay for those who demand that the state make up for their failures, will this be a generation that would allow itself to be conscripted and return to an ethic of not spongeing off the state? My first answer is no, but there is certainly grounds upon which we can be optimistic, as certain national symbols and days, such as Anzac day, are taking on a greater significance.

Perhaps our history will come to our aid and undo the damage done by parents!

DFXK. Not the damage done by parents, but the damage done by ADULTS in their capacity as parents, teachers, citizens, politicians, policeman etc.

The way the whole system is set up dumbs down our children and grooms them to be irresponsible.

I agree with what Jane has to say.
Yes too much cotton wool.
Parents need to teach their kids life skills, the kids also need to experience life and it's hard knocks.

I only have one child, and will never have to worry about the cost of sending him to Uni.
Nore will I ever have to worry about him being put in one of those advanced classes and bruising his ego because he's no longer in the top percent.
Unfortunately he's near the bottom, and seldomly remembers to do home work.
But he does enjoy himself sailing, scouting, horse riding, playing with his dog, helping dad around the farm, pulling broken appliances apart to see how they work, and getting down right filthy dirty.

That's right he won't be a rocket scientist!
Maybe a machanic, sparky, brickie, plumber, builder, metal worker, farmer etc.
Which isn't such a bad thing when you think about it, there is a shortage of people to fill some of these jobs.
I'll be proud if he grows up and is successful at a job like one above.
Much better than having a degree, being too good for a blue collar job, and being on the dole.

Very well said Jane but why say it in twice the number of words that are needed.
The way to hold attention for a long time is to write more so it takes a long time to read.
How does it all come out in the wash?
Maybe that out youth today are overprotected because we adults looking back to our own youth were underprotected,
We parents were underprotected so to compensate for our own feelings of insecurity we overprotect our children.
Has Jane written a lot to hold the reader's attention a lot longer than need be because as a child she did not get the attention she needed because she was underprotected like we all were. I fear that our parents were wrong and we parents today are also wrong. So just what is the correct way to bring up children?
Maybe there is no correct way. Maybe whatever way the child will grow up to be insecure anyway. Who in this world feels totally secure within themselves? We all need to be loved to feel secure . . . and that means being dependant.
If we were independant and wholly fulfilled we would not need another person in our lives.

This thread reminds me of a Monty Python sketch. You know the one, where four Yorkshiremen sit around trying to outdo each other with tales of how tough their childhood was, eg "Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!" The sketch ends with "And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you!"

You people need to get a grip. Every generation thinks the next one has got it easy. The literature moaning about the "young people of today" goes back to ancient Athens. The current generation will face challenges like peak oil and trying to repair the environmental damage perpetrated by their elders. They may very well look back at us and wonder why we squandered the world's resources with such gay abandon. But they will cope. like people have always coped when the world changes.

And why did Johnj write?
To sit around and try and outdo us.
You see John you can't write and be independent of the group. You become what you have written because you posted what you have thought.
The way to be smart John is to hold your thoughts in your mind and not publish them here. Give them to us by thought transference. Our minds are open.

Glen, I'm glad your mind is open, we should all strive for that. I didn't mean to suggest that the thread itself resembled the sketch, merely that the sentiments about young people reminded me of it.

I don't believe the kids of today are any worse (or any better) than my generation or any generation before. Who knows what their world will be like, what challenges they will face? Have they been overprotected and spoilt? Only time will tell.

The simple thrust of Jane Cato's article is the one popular among trendy lefty preacher-teachers who have done so much to dumb down the children of the Australian people. Children must never compete, and gifted children should be seen and not heard.

This egalitarian philosophy by the long haired men and short haired women of the sundry state Teachers Federations, is the primary reason why parents are fleeing the state systems and putting their children in private schools.

London to a brick, that Jane thinks that this is just awful too.

Jane wants every child 'educated" in state schools where preacher-teachers can indoctrinate them on the evils of Western civilisation, instruct them to vote for Labor, and sign "sorry" books to atone their collective guilt for being collectively repsonsible for the mythical "stolen generations."

Jane does not want parents to know how their childrens progress compares to others in their class or in other schools. The result of this policy has seen universities finaly throw up their hands in disgust. Universities now force potential university entrants to sit entrance exams because they were fed up of getting students who may have been politically correct, it's just that they could not read, write, spell or do simple sums.

Jane wants to be bastions of tolerance (bad teachers can not be removed) and make parents understand the value of diversity and acceptance(your kids will be intimidated and their classroom disrupted by children of some ethnic groups who do not value education and are noted for their poor behaviour.)

She wants physically and intellectually challenged children to be part of all classrooms (teachers will spend a disproportionate amount of time coping with students with whom they are ill prepared and badly resourced to cope)

Finally, Jane wants a good old Aussie fair go for all children. (Kids who misbehave must never be punished)

Parents have had a gutfull of this wooly headed thinking and are voting with their feet to get their kids into private schools. Politicians now know that they must intervene to raise standards before the entire state school systems disintegrate.

Johnj

It is quite obvious the challenges future generations of Australian kids will face.
The biggest challenge will be repaying the debt incurred and the interest accuring because of their parents and grandparents spendthriftiness.

Currently we are spending on imports 40 Billion more than we earn on exports...annually. To show very simply what that means is a simple comparison with the US economy.
US annual debt 100 Billion Aussie annual debt 40 Billion
US annual GDP 12,500 Billion Aussie annual GDP 1,000 Billion

I quite agree with the main thrust of this article. I personally favour the sentiment of Kahlil Gibran's words. May I add to this discussion: we are neglecting the relationship that we should have with all children - all the children of the world - and our responsibility, as adults, for their survival too as well as the survival of those within our individual families, communities, countries, regions. When I hear a child, or an adult for that matter, who says "I'm starving", my own father's words come from my mounth to tell them: "You are merely hungry, children in the Third World are starving." This is reality and children have a right to know that they too are responsible for other children. Another value we should encourage is "Friendship first, competition second". Alongside literacy and numeracy we need to promote politeness, courtesy, respect. Adults must extend these values to children on the same level that we expect to receive from them and in this way we encourage children to behave in an acceptable manner within their own peer groups.

My parents married during the 'Great'depression and poverty was all around.
Our mother made us eat everything in front of us with the words 'the starving children in China would love that " so we force down cabbage,offal,parsnips what ever while secretly wishing we could give it to those starving kids. Toys were unheard of.
My children had more than we had but they still were never indulged,times were still hard.
My offspring's offspring have been given things that I would never have dreamed of. But the main thing they cannot have is the freedom to wander ,to roam, to stay out all day exploring and playing that we had because it is no longer safe,even to walk to school, they must be taken and picked up.Nor do they have lovely big yards with trees to climb and play makebelieve.
Computer games and television will never make up for the freedom that today's children cannot have.
Today's parents cannot have the freedom that the older parents had.
All things are relative.

Well, it may be like that in Jane's neighbourhood, but that's not the kind of parenting in this house or of most other parents we know. Parenting is about launching your child into the world as best you can, knowing they need to make their own way, their own decisons, take their own risks, be responsible. We've taught by example, not by prescription, providing a loving and moral basis from which the kids can make ther own lives. As it happens, our kids are "gifted and talented", high achievers, but it's not from parental pushing, just letting them develop their own gifts. My wife considers my own, fatherless, family to have been dysfunctional, I know the effects of that and have sought to give them a better base for a happy and fulfilling life which enriches others as well as themselves. As you do.

It is unfair to compare today's parenting with previous generations. The environment is very different. I would dearly love for my children to be able to walk to school or wander off unsupervised and play in the streets and parks as I did as a child. However I do not remember parked cars along every residential street and idiots speeding along them. One thing I believe has always been true is that parents do what they think is best for their children and we should respect that.

I do think that here is a tendency to carry on treating them as children once they are full grown however. I am amazed at the number of 'children' who still live at home once they are at Uni or working. I am even more amazed at the number of parents that allow it to happen. Surely their independence is more important than their own car or mobile phone and other luxuries. Having to fend for themselves on a tight budget and learn what really is important in life is probably the best thing a parent can teach their children.

There's a lot been written by economists about positional goods: those that conspicuously show that you are better than everyone else.

(Peacocks use tail feathers. Humans have more sophisticated ways.)

What's better than an expensive private school? Drop the kids off and pick them up with the world's fastest production 4WD.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently ran a quarter-page ad for Porsche Cayenne Turbos with tag-line, "If you can't work out why you need 450 hp to pick up the kids from school, you're not giving the problem your full attention - Cayenne Turbo, the five-seater Porsche".

Starting at $A208,000 plus on-road costs, you can trump other Cayenne owners with the twin-turbo S model - 521 hp (383 Kw) - at $A241,000 apiece.

This all-wheel-drive 2.3 tonne monster accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in just over 5 seconds; 270km/h top speed. (Top speed limit in most of Australia is 110km/h.)

Yes. If I was splitting up with my wife, suicidally inclined, wanted to take the kids out with me and leave no residual funds in the estate, I would exactly choose such a machine to pick up my kids from school.

Wouldn't I? Or did Porsche have something else in mind?

What does this say about an increasingly sick society? Our kids are not just excuses for belongings that show how smart we are.

They are supposed to grow up as independent, flourishing human beings, each with his or her own strengths and weaknesses... half below average and half above in every measure ever devised.

After all, that is what average is.

Disclosure: my wife and I drive a 2nd hand 120hp (93kw) Toyota Corolla, weighing just over one tonne. It cost $17,000. Like a Cayenne it can achieve maximum legal speeds on NSW roads. Like a Cayenne, it also seats five.

The only time I will envy a Cayenne owner is when she turns her back on the road to wipe her kid's snotty face, and hits me with 2.3 tonnes front diagonal right at 270km/h.

I don’t know why people seem to get obsessed about somebody else being better than them or them appearing better - or worse for that matter!

Why do people often confuse 'different' with 'better'. Could it be an inferiority complex?

We are all the same in one respect, we all want to find a loving partner and make babies or otherwise and live a safe, healthy and happy life amongst family and friends.

It really doesn't matter what car your drive or what you have or, for that matter, even if you are smarter, thats not being better, it’s just being different!

We need to learn to respect this type of difference and treat each other with respect as everybody has alot to learn from each other.

I know that, when I was at school and was put in extension classes, I struggled with the thought that, compared with my peers, I was now 'ordinary'.

It just made me work harder so that I could be the best in that class, too.

I think on OLO, 'redneck' is also 'common sense'.

When you consider learning and sociological control are in the hands of those whose only experience of life is in a school room, is it any wonder education, social behaviour and understanding are collapsing.

Teachers go to school, then to college, then teach. No experience or understanding of life, just programmed indoctrination. Bureaucrats are virtually the same. They go to school, go to uni, get a meaningless degree in some illusion and then are given the task of overseeing society with no experience or understanding of life.

The result of that approach, has lead us to the situation we have. Jane, is only expressing her own upbringing, semantically knowledgeable, yet lacking true life experience. No wonder people can't understand whats happening, nor do anything about it. They can't because they are a part of the problem. Education in this day and age, is orientated to the self, me and me alone. With the emphasis on cloning more and more programmed slaves for the system. Todays education is designed for a head trip, not towards a life experience.

Looks like this society has reached its zenith and is now just unravelling from within the education, bureaucratic system, social obligations, responsiblitities and family structure.

Alchemist,

If your reasoning is correct, why do you believe that "this society has reached its zenith and is now just unravelling from within the education, bureaucratic system, social obligations, responsiblitities and family structure"?

How come it didn't unravel 50 years ago, or even 100 years ago? What was the "true life experience" that teachers got then that they don't get today?

The Alchemist is correct. I was married to a schoolteacher for 25 years. Teachers don’t even question whether there is a God or maybe that she is black. The sacrosanct curriculum covers all thinking.

Multinationals now interfere in the education process so when a child leaves school that child becomes socialised under a multinational’s way of business thinking. Modern Australians have developed the robotic mind where they do as the master says via the 'hip-pocket' nerve. Where are our emotions? Does 'love’ for others exist any more?

Families split up and family breakdown is normalized. The State, the Church or the School don’t care because the people who now work in those institutions have been ‘educated' the modern way, to look after self and nothing but self. Looking after Number 1 is the core of the system.

Communication is aimed at career and the next sale, even the dishonest sale, and not family. Ethics and morals have broken down and “yes” means “no” and “no” means “yes”, and “maybe” is another way of lying.

Fifty years ago we had Full Employment. My sister after passed her Leaving Certificate in the 1960s applied for 10 career jobs. She received seven replies, had five interviews and was offered three jobs out of that 10. That is full employment.

In my parents' era there was hardly any education. My father left school at 12 and went straight into the workforce, and my mother left school at 10. A lot of people in Australia’s early history could not read or write. Did Australia suffer from it? No. There were more ethics and honesty and loyalty in those days than in a month of Christian Sundays of today.

Business was done on the shake of a hand. Modern life is corrupt compared to yesteryear and now our youth take drugs, commit suicide and have emotional problems. A Rave Party with Ecstasy tablets will make them feel better.

The control freaks, most especially the "politically correct control freaks" (PCCF), have mucked up Australia. Blaming parents for not being able to make their children different from the way the PCCF are trying to make them turn out is a battle. My two children aged 19 and 21 are doing fine, but, I consider that I have been lucky to be raising them before the major damage to Australian society has been done.
Who would want to bring children into life in Australia today?

The Australia media is controlled by a homogenous group of mostly male sickoes who like degrading women and children and promoting male violence. Outlets like the ABC are obsessed by sexuality and programs that seek to destroy the human attributes that have kept us civilised.
I noted a recent report that the notification of abused and neglected children in Queensland increased from 31,068 in 2002 -2003 to 40,829 last year. It is a major job for the government recruiting and training the staff necessary to look after all the forlorn children. It is all indeed shameful.
But the economy is doing fine and the media are just giving people the crap they want say the control freaks.

And who in Australia is not a politically-correct control freak? That is what society has become and now is. We saw political correctness in action in the Cronulla tiots.

Pope Benedict is telling Iran what to do.

Pray tell Pope Benedict is a pawn and really is it his business to be preaching on topics he probably knows little about.
There is much trouble in the Catholic church that could be attended to before interference in international affairs.

Jane, Hooray for your comments, I find them so true and as a true just turned 60, BB with no children of my own except a stepdaughter of 32 years with three children of her own,allunder 6 who rule her home I am amazed at the behaviour they are allowed to get away with. Like Keith I don't advocate some of the beltings we got in the north of England during the sixties, I do think an appropriate smack is far more effective than the mixed message pendulum of screaming or indulgence. And whatever happened to the word "NO"? It seems to be totally lacking in many of the lives of friends and colleagues who have grandchildren, including my partner aged 67 who allows his two grandsons 9,11 to get whatever they want from the fridge, whenever they want. They have so social graces with regard to the bodily functions and think it hilarious to burp or break wind not only in front of me but outside in shopping centres, movies or the inevitable Maccas, whilst I am made to feel like the ogre from hell when I attempt to call them into line and tell them their behaviour is not acceptable. I think too often these parents and grandparents who have do not have the courage to be disliked by their offspring are leaving a frightening legacy of children/adults who will have no sense of having to work or wait for their material needs, depending on money to be endlessly supplied by some other person and/or take whatever they want because they have never been taught the satisfaction of having waited and earned the rewards of your own efforts. Many years in the English police force showed me that most children in the mid sixties in real trouble were those where money could buy any amount of distraction, be it drugs, cars, clothes etc but there was always the anger and feeling that the parents didn't really want them and were buying them. Not a good feeling. truefemale

Mike M, Its reached its zenith because our society's become insular and self orientated. Have a look at history, you'll see parallels with whats happening. With a school system thats pumping out illiterate and self-centred people, with no idea of what caring or being responsible is, then you have reached the top of the hill and going down the other side You also see it in the collapsing infrastructure, social and essential services.

All the rhetoric you hear about new cures for illness, yet we have a growing incidence of failed care in hospitals and doctors surgeries. Having operated hospitality, entertainment, tourist businesses for many years, you can see the difference. We get a lot of Uni and college kids looking for part time work, yet most can't add up, nor write well enough so that you can read their orders. If they don't have till or a calculator, they are lost. They are rude to customers, expect to get their way with work hours and if something goes wrong, they instantly look for someone else to blame, its never them.

When I was young, most teachers came from the work force to teach. It was only primary teachers that came from college. So these people understood what it was like to be a part of the world. Today they only spend their time in school, any interaction with society is done on a limited fashion. Children of today rarely get out and become interactive with the community, they are insulated inside. We have this growing fear of kids being abducted or harmed so they aren't allowed out of their parents sight, yet the facts are the opposite. When they are, they are normally out of control because they have no idea how to act in society.

As most teachers have no life experience, just school, how can they provide an example or experience of living in the general society. You may also note, that they socialise mainly amongst themselves. This again limits their ability to be real to kids. Parents, have totally lost the plot.

Alchemist, your posts display prejudice unsupported by any hard facts. OK, I'll be open-minded enough to accept that possibly today's world is going to hell in a handbasket because professionals such as teachers don't espouse the same values as you do or because they don't have sufficient life experience in your view. But can you elaborate? What should teachers, bureaucrats and anyone else of whom you disapprove do to 'get the right experience' in your eyes? How about parents? What is it about your life experiences that we should accept your way as the true way?

You talk about how teachers were 'when I was young'. Well, I was at school in the 50s and 60s. There were 2 types of teachers - good and bad. I didn't have much of a clue about their life experience but it didn't seem to me that many had other careers before teaching. And if they had, would it have made them better teachers? That is not my impression.

Mate, you come across as a grumpy old man. So you had casual staff working for you that weren't much good. Can you honestly say that you used your experience as an employer to try to teach and develop them or didn't you see that as your role. What sort of teacher were you?

I have very articulate kids who have been able to tell me the problems in school and the issues that they face as students and that teachers face.

For years I blamed the teachers for what was happening to children because I believed that it didn’t matter what environment the child was in at home that when they got to school they should be in an environment where there is consistency, discipline and rules, where they are treated with respect, where they are protected and where they are given the opportunity to learn.

However, it was my eight year old son who told me that I was wrong, and that it was the parents fault as they were not teaching their children well and that the teachers were incapable of dealing with what they had to deal with in the conditions that they were expected to function.

My son said that many teachers couldn’t cope and they yelled a lot and they were not consistent with their discipline and that it was very scary. He said that if there were one or two bad ones in the class, they set the example for the rest. That other kids were so scared of these bullies that they copied them and behaved the same because it was obvious that the bullies were protected in the system and that it didn’t pay to be good. The system uses group punishment methods for dealing with issues. It was obvious that bullies are more protected than their victims.

What society needs is a clear set of rules and guidelines to teach children and adults how to deal with conflict and issues. It’s no good just telling kids to work it out themselves and adults just ignoring, children have to be shown how to resolve issues fairly as otherwise the bully will just use force and the good will suffer.

I believe that students who cannot mix with other students without ruining other children’s education should be educated by their parents at home on Distance Education.

Natural selection.

the strong survive, and the weak and vulnerable fall by the wayside.

It has happenned since day dot.

If you dont like it, teach your child to be strong, teach them to be independant, dont shelter them from the perils of the world as that is life, and their expecriences is what makes them a well rounded person.

Independance is the key, let them make mistakes, pick them up when they fall, but the problem with society these days is we shelter too much.

I thank god my 'parent' let me run wild, although many children made the wrong decisions when i grew up my independance enabled me to tackle life head on, have experience in an array of situations and now for my age i would be in the top 1% of successful people.

If mummy and daddy are their to help the little darlings all the way, you are teaching your child dependance and ruining the future.

Thanks to these parents for loving their kids, but from the side of the independant kids thanks alot for giving us the competitive advantage in life.

Realist,
Strength is not independence or dependence.
Strength is neither but is the combination of both in a social and cohesive society.
Strength is lifting the weak. No one on this planet is independent of other people.
We need each other. Any person who doesn't is weakened.

I think your friend was more concerned with how her child would cope with being 10th or 11th instead of 1st or 2nd. Kids have a tendency to know where they are in the order of things, it is parents like your friend that don't.

If the classwork is too difficult then the child will get put into a class where the work isn't too difficult - it ain't rocket science ... although that might harm your friend's ego a little bit ;-)

Pk, its not my way, but a way that will work that matters, nor is it my values, its common sense. I doubt there is anything that can be done to change things except revolution or sociological collapse. Its not teachers or bureaucrats, but the system thats failed. Their just a product of that system. You would have to start at the bottom of the education system and change it so that it first teaches people how to live and understand what happens in life and why. Presently the system is orientated to economic growth and outcomes, so all you get are products of trying to create clones to serve that outcome. We all know constant growth and economic rationalisation, will only lead to resource collapse and the psychological collapse of society in the end.

As to being grumpy, you'd have to ask those around me to know that. In this business, you have to train everyone that starts work for you, 95% of my permanent staff have been with me for more than 7 years. Every casual that works with us for a month, goes away able to get a job within the industry anywhere and a good reference. There have been many that we would have liked to have given work, but they couldn't keep up with simple tasks like order taking, making up and totalling small orders without a calculator. Most of my secondary teachers had either been to war, or supported it at home, requiring them to work at many different jobs to help the war effort. All the trade teachers and others where from their individual trades and businesses, most had been to war so again had a more varied and real view of life. Not just within their heads or insulated home, computer and TV. It was only when I left school that they were starting to come from teachers college, that I remember.

I have teacher friends, lovely people, great musco's , but not very useful outside the class room in the practical aspects of life.

with the kids going to a posh school and not the local one isn't usually to do with the parents not wanting their kids to be with the neighbourhood but usually to do with the schools reputation and the way they teach. usuallly if you go to a grammar school or private school some people will have posh cars and la-di-da clothing but most people work hard for their kids to go there and they don't go on holidays etc. but some people just have a credit card. others are very high paid and probably aren't single-parents.

brown_eyed_girl,
A private school reputation is no better than a public school reputation. Parents are more concerned about their own reputation.
The way they teach in private school?
Would you not learn that people with money are better people than poor?
Most people work hard! No! All people work hard, both the rich and the poor. Poor people do not contribute to their own poverty.
A holiday? Tourism is aimed at the rich. Who owns all the Four-Wheel Drives and pays for the petrol?
A credit card? You mean lots of credit cards. Australians have some of the highest credit card debt in the world. Modern-day Australians believe to live beyond their means is the “in thing”. That is not taught in public school.
Single-parents? Why are there single parents? Because the person of today only thinks of him or herself and not the relationship outside of self . . . and that takes me back to my second sentence.

my mum is a single parent and the reason my mum and dad got divorced is because of an entirely different matter which i would rather not say.
only someof them have the big cars, in the mornings you mostly see commodore and other cars like that, sure, you'll see the occasional posh car and rolex watch but most people there aren't like that. i know.
and the four wheel drive art, my dad owns a four wheel drive, he doesn't go around eating at posh restaurants and he lives in a unit, not even a house but a unit.
sure poor people might work hard but most people i know that go to the school work extremely hard, when you go to their houses they're always at a desk organising things or preparing.
and it is not about personal reputation. my mum shops at lifeline, she doesn't shop at la-di-da shops to get a good reputation, she thinks reputation should be based on personality and kindness, not money.

and yes, my brother does go to a grammar school but we don't go on holidays, our car is second hand and my mum shops at lifeline, many of my clothes are hammy downs.

brown_eyed_girl,
And you are a very loyal, loving and honest person.
Thank you.