@raclut better than the parents arguing with the referee!
I teach a sport and I am most impressed when I see the parents engaging in some kind of sport while their kids are in their session - running on the track, whatever. The worst are the parents who hang around and yell at their kid the whole time for not “doing it right” when they have no clue what is actually being taught. I think it’s healthy for kids to play their games and parents to do their thing. It’s too imbalanced. Important tournaments or meets it makes sense for the parents to be there to watch.
But the article in the OP is claiming that modern parents are spending too much time at their children’s activities. I’m not sure that is true and, in my case, I think my kids did about the same number of activities I did. The biggest difference is that I could walk to mine on the way home from school or ride my bike, but my kids needed rides to their activities or they did them at school through the after school program. I only had 2 kids and my mother had 6, so of course she didn’t go to every one of my activities. I often drove my kids to their practices or lessons and then went to do errands. Gymnastics was near a grocery store so I usually knocked that off. At the hockey rink there was wi-fi so I could work or catch up on emails.
From the article:
And this is a bad thing? Parents do more driving (and I think that is a good thing because that meant I had more time to talk to my kids). I don’t think there was a kid on earth who was read to more than my sister, and she’s 63 years old - with 2 grandparents, 2 parents and an uncle, she was read to almost 24/7. This is not a ‘modern parent’ thing.
Had the best childhood playing all the time, getting punished at school for goofing off, getting Fs time to time, playing sports. So, it would be hypocritical for me to put pressure on my kid to get good grades. The goal my kid set for himself is purely his own, but we did support all our kid’s endeavors enthusiastically.
I even told him it’s up to him to decide if he wants to go to college, but if he doesn’t want to go, he should learn some skills to earn a living. As long as he makes his own living and is a responsible person, that’s all I expect. Even now.