Children can realise their potential if parents stimulate their self-confidence and nurture their intelligence, explains Peta Tomlinson
YOU DON'T CARE what your children do for a living, as long as they're happy. Right? By the same token, 'my boy the street sweeper' doesn't quite have the same ring as, 'my daughter, the senior counsel'; or, 'my elder son, the neurosurgeon'.
Face it. If you're a parent, you're an employment snob. You want your child to be the best they can be - as long as that best can earn a lot more money than you've ever managed to, and carries a name that is easily dropped into casual conversation.
This pursuit of perfection in one's offspring has parents logging on in droves on to Web sites promising to 'unlock the genius in your child', and beating a path to the bookstore where tomes on this topic virtually walk off the shelves.
Long before the words 'competitive advantage' became the buzz term of a generation, parents have pushed their children over the line of ordinariness. 'Eat your carrots; they're good for your eyes' or 'Have some more spinach, it will make you strong' are familiar parental exhortations.
But Clare Parker, an early-childhood education proponent, writer and grandmother from Montana, in the United States, who founded the International Parenting Association and Child Genius Magazine, touched parental buttons around the world by her proclamation that 'infants are born geniuses'.
A wave of hits on her Web site followed, with parents from all over the world, 'including Hong Kong', desperate to know the secret.