Successful children are not tots under pressure

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration" -- Thomas A. Edison.

As modern educationalists continue to ponder whether intelligence is as much about nurture as nature, recent years have seen an explosion of parenting techniques that emphasize environmental factors in children's development.

It is well-known that upwardly mobile, ambitious parents who want their children to be at least as successful as themselves put a lot of effort and money into ensuring their offspring get the best possible start to life, even when they are still fetuses swimming around in Mum.

From the year dot, aspirational parents to-be can easily find "developmental" products for their children, from classical "womb music" tapes for pregnant mothers and babies and fortified milk containing docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) -- believed to have a good effect on the little umbilical jumper's brain growth.

Once these young Einsteins-to-be finally pop out, there are still more books and even seminars one can go to, to cultivate a gifted child.

Well-to-do poppets can now take arts and crafts classes, become infant computer nerds, and still wobbly-toddlers can try out gymnastics and horse riding experiences, not to mention the more classical, prestige courses like piano and ballet.

Not so long ago, the country was introduced to the hype of the Sempoa and Kumon math courses, which allow children as young as pre-school age, to learn to count big numbers quickly. Advertisements, usually cheap posters detailing these classes, have mushroomed; hanging on power poles, city trees and the walls of middle class and wealthy suburbs.

Which, if you believe the hype about these products, is all well and good.

The bad news is, however, that there are psychologists who believe this culture of ambition is putting too much stress on children. Far from growing lovable prodigies, they argue, we are in danger of creating burned-out, unhappy kids.

Elisabeth Guthrie, a child psychiatrist from New York who has 15 years experience of parenting during her tenure in the Blythedale Children's Hospital, wrote a book about how to raise a successful child without putting too much pressure them.

In her book The Trouble With Perfect: How Parents Can Avoid the Overachievement Trap and Still Raise Successful Children, Guthrie invented the phrase "push-parenting" to describe this behavior.

Guthrie observed the phenomenon was common among middle- to high-income bracket parents, particularly affluent professionals and business executives.

According to Guthrie, these groups are used to success and to beating out the competition and they bring this notion of success to parenting.

She wrote in the book, which has recently been translated to Indonesian, that such parenting poses a danger; pushing children too much. It can even mean they risk becoming physically sick or have emotional illnesses later in life.

Guthrie said many of her young patients were depressed and anxious or suffered from bulimia or anorexia at a scarily young age.

On http://specialchildren.about.com, Terri Mauro writes five suggestions about how one can make their children successful while at the same time pay attention to what they really want.

Mauro said that your child's opinion was important. It was OK to set priorities for your child but parents should make sure that the child got to set some, too.

Secondly, Mauro said, happiness counts.

"Is being successful by your parental terms making your child happy? Happiness is in itself a kind of success, and something parents ignore at their peril," Mauro writes.

The third secret is: The goal is progress, not perfection.

Don't push your child to have straight As or to be a teacher's pet, she said.

The next, she said, was to create opportunities for success.

"If your child has trouble being successful, create situations in which success can happen naturally. Make sure your child spends lots of time doing things he or she is good at."

Lastly, Mauro warned parents not to try to fix everything.

"Your child doesn't have to be successful in everything he tries. Every failure is not a signal that you need to prepare more and push harder," she said.