Why would parents do that?!

Well, around here ( Toronto, Canada), most people don't know math contests exist until they write a simple one in grade 9 like the Pascal. It is not even until 12th grade many people realize there can be some deep material involved. ( writing the AMC12/Euclid ). I honestly only met some kids serious about math a handful of times, really only at a local math circles held at UTS. Most of those kids were surprisingly well adjusted. I only met one parent that was a bit forward, he still seemed to just stay in the background.

I have only met a small population of the Canadian math-lete, yet they all seemed self motivated. Then again, the ones I met were all aspiring Olympians, and by nature of the challenge, you need to want it pretty badly. So maybe my sample is skewed?

What you described sounds like what happens in China.
People are like that in China.

I went through the "competitive parents" thing and I don't remember benefiting from it. It was a horrible experience.

Can both of you elaborate a bit more on your experiences, please?

That just sounds ridiculous. Approximately how many of these stories have you heard?

In SC, pretty much all the math is done through the school math teams. The information is given out from the teachers to the students who then tell their parents. To tell the truth, there isn't too much inter-parent communication going on between parents of math team students. So that leads me to ask what kind of setup do they have that would require a parent to ask another one about a competition?

Not many (<6), but they are all from the same area, and one of the parents is even writing a book somewhat inspired by her expeiences (one of her sons won the Intel competition, and some of the stories she had were very disappointing). I just wonder how common this is. I hear enough horror stories about people trying to get their kids into the right preschools in NYC that I'm willing to believe almost anything coming out of that environment.

Parents lying about where and when events take place?! That's pretty low. Then again, it might have been a mistake—mightn't it?

Most parents of math people here (in Georgia) I know, including my own seem to be generally supportive, but not pushing.

My situation is just a different shade of the competitiveness.

For me, it was around third grade. I was kind of beaten occassionally because of my bad grades. I was told that the neighbor's kid was more disciplined and that my cousin, who is less fortunate (in that her mom and dad seldoms look after her) always excel in school. Once I placed out of the top ten in my class, the neighbor would be informed that I placed 2nd. Our big family would heard that I was never less than perfect. So they would congratulate me and praise my parents, I would smile and hurt inside knowing that I'm a loser.

There are a lot of comparing grades and scores going on when I was a kid both inside and out of home. Two parent had stopped me once outside of school and demanded for my grades (since I was the class prez).

Parents might think that their kids are a reflection of them, and if their kids are geniuses, then they would be viewed as geniuses. They might think that if their kids beat the other kids in tests or contests, then it would simply means that they also has placed top above all other parents.

wow. that's messed up. thanks for being so honest

The parental behavior described here is not common in North Carolina - at least with academic contests. I've seen a few kids who I've thought suffered from excessive parental expectations regarding math contests. No parents have deliberately tried to sabotage the efforts of other math contestants to my knowledge.

Overly competitive parental behavior may be a bit more common with sports though. I've witnessed some competitive parental behavior at soccer, baseball, basketball, cheerleading, and dance events. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the kids were "berated" for poor efforts/performances.

Music also gets competitive for adolescents. I'm sure that parents remind some kids that practice will lead to quality performance. When does this turn from "support" to "destructive pressure?"

Setting expectations for a teenager is really quite complex and highly dependent on the kid, even within a family. What works to motivate one might turn off another. Family support (attending/transporting to practices/events, financial contributions for outside training, encouragement for good behaviors, discouragement for poor behaviors, etc.) can be construed by some as de-motivating "pressure" while others will thrive on the challenge of the inevitably higher expectations.

Family support and high expectations will often lead to pressure and potentially destructive competitive behaviors by coaches, parents and kids. Separating these behaviors is deceptively difficult because of the differences between kids. Many successful competitors have probably felt the pressure. It's probably impossible to have the good without the bad.

As Totally Zealous mentioned, different cultures have vastly different approaches to setting expectations. A few years ago, one of my Thai colleagues was discussing his approach. After analyzing his son's skills and abilities, he decided that his son should become a medical doctor. When his son went to college for a year, he returned and informed his father that he did not want to become a medical doctor and would rather study something else. My colleague told his son that "something else" was unacceptable and if he chose to do something else he would lose all financial support and have to live on his own (i.e. "kicked out of the house.") Today, his son is a happy, successful medical doctor and my colleague says that his son regularly thanks him for insisting that he become a doctor. My Thai colleague is convinced he did the “right” thing and cannot understand why so many Americans let their kids flounder.

This story, evidently common in Asian cultures, challenged many of my thoughts on child rearing. I personally experienced an approach on the other end of the spectrum. In the 60's and 70's, it was common practice for parents of Midwestern U.S. kids to let the kids make their own choices and learn from their mistakes. Seemingly as a result, expectations fell. Bright kids in public high schools are working much harder at schoolwork than their counterparts of a generation ago. Not surprisingly, standardized test scores for U.S. students began a two or three decade decline during this period. Many of the brightest students from my high school decided not to go to college, toiling for years in factory or low-level service sector jobs. While the pay disparity between blue-collar and professional jobs was not nearly as great then as it is today, it's not clear that my friends and I were ready to make significant life choices with minimal parental input when we were 17 or 18 years old.

Now, as a math team coach and parent, I'm concerned about how to set high expectations for students without turning them off or burning them out. It's not easy. Working with kids that have highly successful siblings can be particularly challenging. Most of the burnout occurs from trying too many activities rather than focusing too heavily on one activity.

Getting the kids who participate in math team activities to value the contributions of everyone associated with the team is an important goal (just as it is in any group activity.) I use the analogy of an orchestra - if the weakest players are not motivated to improve, the orchestra will never be able to overcome their weaknesses with excellent performances by those sitting in the "1st" chairs.

Making the activities fun is important in relieving the stress induced by contest participation.

(Sorry for the late comment ), but i just wanted to say, this is very very typical. One example is me. Basically, when I started playing chess, at least to some 'good' extent in 5th grade, my father just started yelling at me to become better. If I didn't do so well, because of pressure, or just not feeling well, my father would hit me, and tell of how his friends' children did well in things. I had absolutely no sense of reality, and basically lost all interest in work because of this (not that I did in fact work at anything, but my interest in things grew less and less). When high school came, and when parents didn't really have an effect, I quit chess, mainly because I could feel alot of disdain and hatred in me whenever I started chess again.

And yes, in the NYC area, people are very accustomed to talking about money, or about college, etc. When I was at a vacation trip at my cousin's house, I'd hear random comments about how much more money my uncle and aunt had than my family or how they'd have a bigger car, etc. But the thing is, I'd think people in all heavily populated regions have this sort of trait; I can usually hear this sort of talk among the people in San Diego as well.