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Last night I ran into a parent who has a child in my DD's class. She asked me where DD will go to middle school. When I told her that DD would be going to a different middle school than her child, she said "Good, that reduces the competition for [X]. [X] really wants to be the smartest kid at [the middle school]." She then went on to say that she knows our kids will be competing for one of 40 full-ride scholarships for in-state tuition when they get to high school. I told her that I'm just happy that middle school is settled and will worry about the college scholarship stuff later.

To be honest, I cringed at this conversation. I have no idea how our kids compare academically. With DD, we've never really talked about other students as competitors. I've focused on getting DD around other smart kids and wanting her to have intellectual peers. Then I thought about this woman's kid who comes off as super confident (and competitive) then I thought about my kid who is modest to a fault and is reluctant to tell people about her abilities. I wonder if I have gone too far in the opposite direction.

Do you encourage your kids to be academically competitive?

I'd cringe, too. I expect that this woman's child will grow up to be as obnoxious and socially dysfunctional as she is.

I encourage my DD to do her best.

Whoa. That is a totally screwed up thing for her to say.

I would never encourage my child to think this way, no. (I am really not competitive--maybe even to a fault.) DD has a friend who has always been competitive and it makes me very uncomfortable. It seems to bother her as well. He gets very caught up in winning or losing games, whereas DD just loved to play. I have seen her lose on purpose so as not to agitate him.

I'm glad to hear that other people found her comments offensive.
I do worry that DD is "going underground" about her abilities as we head toward middle school. Clearly, this woman's kid is not going underground with respect to her expectations of herself. I guess it just brought my own concerns into stark relief.

To be honest, I would not feel comfortable if my DD suddenly started talking about being the smartest. How do you even measure that? Having a 2e younger sibling, DD knows that someone can be smart without being a high achiever. I just wish DD seemed a little more comfortable with her abilities and did not try to down play them.

My first reaction was, 'Whoa, that's someone with *no* filter!'

Not only can I imagine myself saying those things, I have said them -- but only to immediate family members, out of earshot of anyone else. I also assume many of the parents at my son's school (over half the families are immigrants), who fit the stereotype of 'tiger parents', are saying the exact same things in privacy.

By 'family members', I mean my husband, in-laws, *and* children. Yes, I encourage my kids to be competitive in academics, so they are included in conversations about, say, who is likely to win a merit scholarship at the high schools they're applying to, or what order they are likely to place in at math competitions.

It's possible to do this in a healthy way, I think. Ds's school encourages it, but only within limits: teachers strike a good balance between individual and team pursuits, and they stress the importance of both winning and losing graciously.

This atmosphere has been very beneficial to my son. He learns important lessons every year, ones that don't come easily or naturally to him: hard work pays off; failure is part of learning; it's possible to learn from your peers; your friends root for you no matter what.

Stepping back a bit -- it brings up the issue of motivation: is just learning something enough, or do we have to make a competition out of it? I see among my students a few who value knowledge and understanding for their own sake; for others, they are a means to an end; and still others fall somewhere in between. I would say that some level of comfort with a competitive atmosphere will probably come in handy for most people, perhaps especially those who were born without that 'fire in the belly', that burning urge to compete.

My wife encourages this more than I do.

I'm still pretty bitter about the my entire "life is a giant competition" era that led me to near total burnout early in life.

When she gets to the point where competition matters in terms of high school, I might think about it, but only to the point of solid achievement. I'll probably try to evaluate her class and figure out where she is with respect to percentile so that I have a good idea of her achievement target.

There's always the urge to train her to destroy the competition, but I think I'll just repress that or solely use it against insurance companies.

Yes, to some people that kind of comment is a compliment of sorts. I have had people say things vaguely like this to me about my DD after she left her old school ("It makes the rest of our kids look better now that she's gone, ha ha") though not quite as baldly.

The problem being that having the value that you want your child to be the best isn't really a good value to have.

It tends away from pro-social behavior.

Just starting this year for 3rd grade, I do tell both DS8 and DD8 to do their best and get the top grades - not in relation to other kids but in relation to their abilities. So I guess that is "academically competitive" to an extent. The reason why I even said anything is because their effort grade are consistently lower than their achievement grades. Grades of "A" in achievement are paired with grades of "2" (on a 1,2,3 scale). I want them to not be satisfied just because they earned an "A" on their report card, but to actually produce the written work that they are capable of consistently.

I generally agree, but I think that with a slight modification, it can be quite productive. Our emphasis is not on "Be the best". Instead we emphasize "Be the best you can be", and do not worry about how they compare with others.

We were surprised that DD13 started becoming competitive on her own. Her friends in elementary school ended up being some of the strongest in Jr. High, and she wants to keep up with them. While she competes with them on one level, they all help each other study and work on projects together. And since our town emphasizes academics, the brainy group is the popular group, so there is no need to go underground.

DS10 is also popular (both DD and DS won student council rep elections), but is intensely competitive on his own. He is used to getting first place in academics and in chess, and gets overly upset when he does not. For him, we have to tell him that the effort is what is important, not the results.