This drive to “one up” someone… exclude them, make fun of …
has to end with you. The parents..
Your child isn’t an athlete… Michael Jordan is an athlete.
When your child runs the mile in 5:50, someone is going to come along and run it 4:58, your job isn’t to sign your child up for running lessons, so you can once again “one up someone”..
Your JOB as a parent is to teach them, there is always someone better than you, and less fortunate..
My daughter Mallory was full of life, she was a cheerleader, good student, well liked by her inner circle, gymnast, sister, daughter, granddaughter.. and hated in the halls of middle school.
The target these 4 girls placed on her back, lead directly to her heart.
It’s my mission to educate and create legislature that will hold your children accountable for what they post online.
The laws to force social media parenting are coming …
Start now before you wear my shoes…
👠
The “laws to force social media parenting are coming,” Grossman says. This last point intrigues me, because I honestly believe this type of thing will be very difficult to enforce…yet, like with school attendance and truancy laws, the threat of parental
consequences might be the only way to get SOME parents to care what their kids do on social.
But, back to the “one up” syndrome. Shows like “Toddlers and Tiaras” and “Dance Moms” clearly exemplify what Grossman is talking about here. When did we as parents get so obsessed with our kids being THE best instead of them doing THEIR best? The other day my daughter came to me upset because she was getting a 95 in 5th grade math, and last year in 4th grade she had made 100%. I calmly explained to her that her dad and I just wanted her to do her best, and whether her best was 95 or 85, that was fine with us. “Sophie,” I said to her, “I am FAR more interested in you being a good PERSON that I am interested in you being a good STUDENT.” I mean, my first impulse was not to hire her a tutor so she can be the best math student in her class, and beat that brainiac who got first place in the regional Math Olympics.
And I am not trying to toot my own horn. I am a pretty regular mom who messes up quite a bit. But it does not occur to me that my kid needs to be better than everyone else.
But I think that’s becoming the norm, more and more.
Moms and dads, I leave you with these words from Dianne Grossman, grieving mom, because I think they bear repeating: “Your JOB as a parent is to teach them, there is always someone better than you, and less fortunate.”
Empathy, my friends. Please, let’s all vow to teach our children how to walk in someone else’s shoes, before we walk in Dianne Grossman’s…or the shoes of the parents of her daughter’s bullies.
