Lilacs4Me
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2015
I'll make this brief -
Went to a ceremony last night for my son's sports team. We were instructed to tell our son the following when he was called up, and keep it under 2 min MAX because there were 50 kids to get through:
1. we love him
2. We are proud of him
3. A trait about them that we admire and why
99% of the parents adhered to this.
ONE family decided that this wasn't good enough for their son, so the parents and literally 20 of their closest family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc) burst into the theater, danced down the aisle to "Simply The Best" with matching t-shirts that had a pic of the kid flexing his arm muscle on the front, his jersey # on the sleeves, and some sort of quote on the back (I didn't catch what it said)
The mom proceeded to tell us for over 10 minutes how awesome her kid was, down to his grades, sports accomplishments, girlfriends, etc, including how her son makes such good choices as a teenager that he has NEVER made a bad choice and even excludes himself from social situations that might get him into trouble and how hard it is for teens to do this.
When she was done, Dad read his speech - another 10 minutes on all of the sports he played, stats, college acceptance letters, awards, prizes, etc.
I will refrain from saying what I thought about it other than this being my biggest takeaway:
If you are going to "go rogue" and sing your kid's praises to 150 of his teammates and their parents in this fashion, you'd better be darn sure there is not ONE person in that audience that knows something about your kid that you don't know.
DS17 says the kid drinks and smokes pot with his friends at parties all the time. HIs friends include many members of this team.
I mainly feel bad for him that if he hiding anything, how can he possibly tell his parents after all of this??!! What kind of pressure are they putting on him!!
Not really looking for advice, or whether you agree or disagree they they were right or wrong to do this at the event, or anything like that, although you are free to comment lol. Just thought it would be a good discussion to have with the parents of teens here about the pressure we put on kids, or, even, the discrepancies we all have in how WE see our kids vs. what the real world sees them as - all thoughts welcome!
Went to a ceremony last night for my son's sports team. We were instructed to tell our son the following when he was called up, and keep it under 2 min MAX because there were 50 kids to get through:
1. we love him
2. We are proud of him
3. A trait about them that we admire and why
99% of the parents adhered to this.
ONE family decided that this wasn't good enough for their son, so the parents and literally 20 of their closest family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc) burst into the theater, danced down the aisle to "Simply The Best" with matching t-shirts that had a pic of the kid flexing his arm muscle on the front, his jersey # on the sleeves, and some sort of quote on the back (I didn't catch what it said)
The mom proceeded to tell us for over 10 minutes how awesome her kid was, down to his grades, sports accomplishments, girlfriends, etc, including how her son makes such good choices as a teenager that he has NEVER made a bad choice and even excludes himself from social situations that might get him into trouble and how hard it is for teens to do this.
When she was done, Dad read his speech - another 10 minutes on all of the sports he played, stats, college acceptance letters, awards, prizes, etc.
I will refrain from saying what I thought about it other than this being my biggest takeaway:
If you are going to "go rogue" and sing your kid's praises to 150 of his teammates and their parents in this fashion, you'd better be darn sure there is not ONE person in that audience that knows something about your kid that you don't know.
DS17 says the kid drinks and smokes pot with his friends at parties all the time. HIs friends include many members of this team.
I mainly feel bad for him that if he hiding anything, how can he possibly tell his parents after all of this??!! What kind of pressure are they putting on him!!
Not really looking for advice, or whether you agree or disagree they they were right or wrong to do this at the event, or anything like that, although you are free to comment lol. Just thought it would be a good discussion to have with the parents of teens here about the pressure we put on kids, or, even, the discrepancies we all have in how WE see our kids vs. what the real world sees them as - all thoughts welcome!