Don’t get me started on pushy mums in the playground.

Don’t get me started on pushy mums in the playground.

I always feel very stressed in the five minutes before school finished when I am waiting in the playground. Mums stand around chatting together, looking for opportunities to show off the latest achievements of their darling children.

Mums are fearsomely competitive with each other, desperately vying for their child to be the most musical, academic or athletic. This will come as a no surprise to anyone who has endured the school gates at pick-up time.

“ What is your Molly up to after school this term? Is she still learning violin, swimming, French, Gymnastics, Ballet etc?”

“ She has taken up some new hobbies. She has fencing, Spanish, and piano classes this term. She is still doing very well with her violin, oh she is going to have her grade one exam soon.”

“I took James to Sedgwick museum this weekend, he identified every single fossil in one of the glass display cabinets.”

All with an undercurrent of showing their children are better than yours. Their children are the busiest; or the most cultured, and the brightest in the whole school.

There are two types of pushy mums, one type is the Hothouse Expert, the other is the Hovering Helicopter.

You probably know some of the Hovering Helicopter mums. In play group they stand over their toddlers telling them the RIGHT way to play with toys. They explain everything in every occasion, and use every opportunity to educate without giving the child pause for breath.

Once I took my children to a children’s concert with a Hovering Helicopter mother of two. She just could not help herself, pointing out all the instruments to her children, and constantly explaining the storyline of Animal Carnival, so the children never actually heard the music. For goodness sake, they should enjoy the music, they are learning in their own way. Ironically, when she asked the childrendid they enjoy the music afterwards, none of her children said yes!

Stop controlling your children’s lives. Children flourish when they have opportunities to do trial and error and make choices about they want to play. Let them have fun playing. Let them explore the world themselves. Most of all let them think for themselves. The constant pressure and hovering will crush any curiosity and destroy any love of learning.

You find the Hot House Expert mums in any baby and toddler groups, or school playground. Those mums are mortally afraid other people do not recognise their children’s genius. They are showing off their babies are the earliest at eating solid food, standing up, and taking their first step. They of course possess Baby Shakespeare, Baby Einstein, and Baby Newton DVD. They sign up to baby sign language class. Then they are incredibly irritating by announcing their little babies can sign and talk when yours are still sitting on the floor chewing some plastic toys.

They tell you their little darlings can read, count, and do math before they even go to primary school! They claim that they only send their children to school for socializing. Of course there is the competition of who has the harder spelling words, reading big chapter books, and doing harder math.

I felt like screaming! We're all unique, and our children are all unique. And I for one won't be giving a damn what anyone else's darling offspring are doing when I have mine. It seems it's the parents who need to grow up, not the children.

We make a terrible mistake if we think we can guarantee our children’s success by pushing them to extreme. What is more we have forgotten how important it is that they want to succeed through their ambitions of their own , not their parents. Let them learn how to deal their own failure, stand on their own two feet. The worse that can happen is that they fail. But failure can often be an even greater motivator than success.

Let children be children. Let them climb trees, kick a ball, and play with Lego. I certainly want to raise rounded happy children, who believe in themselves.

I must confess I am a bit of pushy mum. Even though I know it is bad and wrong. The pushy mums who dominate playground suck me in. Standing there I am telling myself my children are the special ones and the best. I cannot bear any shadow cast upon their magnificence. At the end of school day, my children’s beautiful happy faces drag me back to the ground. “ Mummy look at my spelling book, I got five words right today. “ You are my special one even if you got five out of ten in today’s spelling.