Bostonian, I think that the thing which distinguishes whether or not that sort of thing is supportive (versus unhealthy pressure) depends upon the level of misery induced in the child.
Yes, adults do spend their lives working-- however, long ago we opted to protect children with child-labor laws. I'm thinking that the reason we did that might relate to the reason why we no longer have workhouses, too.
I've seen kids participating in such things alongside my DD (who was
willingly present), and a fair number of them were not there by choice. Some of them already looked like trapped animals, quite frankly. They were miserable, and they were so constrained that they had no idea
what they wanted to do instead-- just that they didn't want to be doing what they were doing, but were powerless to fight against the rising tide of parental (and societal?) will.
Let me also add that THOSE kids-- the ones that are already showing signs like that in high school, during the height of the "admissions" race, are the ones that the OP's article is referring to. I'm suggesting in my posts that after the fact, it may not be so easy to tease apart which of them are
that versus which of them are kids who genuinely
were riding the wave and driving a lot of it themselves-- until they experienced some kind of precipitating trauma during that first year of college. Usually the first few weeks of college.
