Awarding parents for kids' good performance a bad idea

Benjamin Low responds to Telok Kurau Secondary's decision to award parents of Honour Roll students as reported in TODAYonline, 5 November 2007.

"Parents get blamed when their kids do badly in school, but when they do well, its often taken for granted and no one says anything". These were the words of MP Ong Seh Hong in the article titled "Awards for parents if children excel".

As a student, I fully comprehend the impact of parental support in academia. Many students' affective, cognitive and material support in their education comes from their parents, and their participation in their child's education is undoubtedly valuable. However, recognition for parents as given by Telok Kurau Secondary is akin to a sort of "reward" for the parents, and such a policy overlooks an extremely important implication: the use of a child as a status symbol.

In Singapore's obsessively competitive (and comparative) zeitgeist, it is common to have unenlightened parents comparing their children's grades or boasting about them. The pressure exerted by parents is actually far from beneficial – in fact it is often detrimental, for motivation comes in the form of comparison. Many parents think that by telling their child how useless they are compared to neighbour/relative/colleague X's child, studying in such-and-such top school and getting such-and-such top grades, they are actually helping the child. On the contrary, the damage done to the child's sense of self is far beyond the comprehension of many – indeed, what was meant by the parents to be love meets resentment from their child due to a gross lack of sensitivity.

The policy of rewarding parents may create a physical and officially sanctioned manifestation of the comparison syndrome. It turns education into something like a show-dog competition: reward the owner when the dog performs and this reward-the-parent policy could do just that. Where it was previously a case of an unenlightened parent making an insensitive comparison between one child and another, the child's emotional hurt is likely to be exacerbated with the unenlightened parent's demand for a "Good Parent" Award as a basis for more bragging rights against a rival parent.

The difference is obvious. The child will now face added pressure to perform, even if the parent does not voice it out. This can hardly be beneficial for the masses of students out there who already face a society (and schools) that demand optimal performance on all fronts. As it is, many students are going through hell if they don't do well and no such negative pressures are needed. Besides, isn't a child's success reward enough for any loving parent? Creating incentives for parents to aid their child's success is actually going to life worse for those students who don't get top-notch grades, which is obviously the overwhelming majority.

Perhaps it is best for schools to talk to their students before plunging into such schemes. Students are the ones facing the heat, and if schools want to help them it is best to solicit the students' sentiments about a policy, especially the non-academic policies. In the interest of students' emotional well-being, I sincerely hope that reward-the-parent policies will not proliferate.

By Benjamin Low