Few parents would go to quite such extremes to ensure their child's victory in a tennis match as Christophe Fauviau. He was arrested earlier this month in France on suspicion of having poisoned his son's opponent by slipping an antidepressant drug into his water bottle. Fauviau's 13-year-old daughter Valentine is the best female player in her age group, but his son was less talented. His drugged opponent died when he lost control of his car after retiring exhausted from the match.
But parents do go to surprising lengths to boost their offspring's chances of success. We live in a competitive world, where success is measured by exacting standards. The result is that increasing numbers of parents are chasing places in top schools and on top teams, and are prepared to put their children through intensive work schedules to get there.
ILLUSTRATION: YU SHA
The excessive pushiness of sporting parents begins long before they get to international level. One sports master admits he has had to send parents off for shouting abuse at the referee and the opposing side. "They are ridiculously partisan," he says. "Their passion to win is more suited to the finals of the World Cup."
The loudest fathers on the sidelines at under-eight matches usually wear tracksuits and have undistinguished sporting pasts of their own. In most cases, these parents are living out their own frustrated sporting ambitions through their children.
In west London, where the All England Club casts a long shadow, parents sign up their children for intensive holiday courses from the age of four. "Tennis has social cachet," observes a mother whose sons showed no interest in the sport at four or any other age. "The parents are particularly keen because, if the children do well, they will make a fortune."
Like sporting scholarships, music is a time-honoured means of reducing school fees, so children are mercilessly trained to perform on the lead-up to school selection. I heard about one mother with four daughters who have been compelled to learn three instruments each. They do three hours' practice a day, before and after school, and on Saturdays she piles all four in the car and drives them 65km to the "only" decent woodwind teacher in the county. Although she has no musical talent of her own, this mother is determined that her children will become accomplished musicians.
Many pushy parents get their offspring started before they can walk. Music teachers spend years dealing with the damage caused by ambitious parenting. Again, it is the scholarship circuit at secondary-school entrance where the crunch usually comes. One teacher told me how the parents of one child pushed her beyond her aptitude when she was very young, to get her a stage or two above her contemporaries.
"To push children when their technique is immature causes so much damage," she says. "It was so demoralising for the child to spend hours unpicking her technique. There were tears... The parents were always demanding why she wasn't the first violin. They used to write these terrible letters.
"She had been told that she had to be the best. The awful thing was, children who were playing to their ability would hit their stride and really take off. Now this child plays mechanically. Her soul's not in it, her eyes are dead," the teacher says.
Bright children transferring to big school are used to being top of the class, and their parents are often determined that that's where they will remain.
"Everyone is struggling for a place on the ladder," explains one parent-teacher. "You've got to work the system.
On Saturdays you're either standing by the side of the pool shouting, "Big arms!" or doing maths with the toddler."
In their relentless mission to engage their children in extracurricular activity, pushy parents often hire private tutors.
Every middle-class parent I canvassed confessed to having their children tutored -- even those who already paid school fees.
"We all do it," confided one parent, "even people at very good schools. Society has become much more competitive. It's important to get your offspring into a good university, and you've got to have good grades. Most people are using tutors when their children are nine or 10 years old to get them into independent schools."
"There are no guarantees any more," says another self-confessed pushy parent, "and levels are constantly being raised. There's a hysteria about it, at least in London, so the best tutors are booked up years in advance."
Many find it embarrassing to admit that their child needs tutoring. At a friend's school, one mother was often heard dismissing tutorials as a waste of money. When my friend suggested bringing her daughter over after school on a Wednesday, she made excuses, and finally admitted that Wednesdays were the day when her children got help with French.
The Yusof family provide a cautionary tale for parents excessively focused on their children's achievements. A maths researcher and his scientist wife gave up their careers to educate their five children at home. Sufiah went to Oxford University at 13 to do a masters in maths. Her younger sister was expected to take her maths high school graduation exam by the age of six. The other children, all academically advanced for their years, were winning tennis tournaments. But instead of profiting from the secrets of his intensive teaching technique, the father found himself accused of cruelty when Sufiah ran away at the age of 15.
"You can pressurise children too much: Sufiah Yusof's father treated it like an experiment," says Jo Counsell, education consultant to the UK's National Association for Gifted Children.
Parents do seem capable of cruelty in driving their children beyond any hope of enjoyment, particularly in the areas of music and sport. But lobbing thousands of balls at your cricket-mad son in nets is not of itself a bad thing. It's a question of proportion.
"There is a difference between enabling children to fulfil their potential and hothousing," says Counsell. "It's about achieving balance, which is about the most difficult thing to do as a parent."
Counsell claims that really gifted children will be pushy themselves: they have a passion for their particular field that can be all-consuming. In a recent case, a boy who is gifted at chess was taken out of school by his parents because the school would not give him Wednesdays off to play. Counsell believes the parents were being reasonable: "One day a week does not seem obsessive. His parents were very emphatic that if he wanted to give up tomorrow, he could."
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