Co-sign. The idea that it has to be all one (complete inclusion with no losers) or all the other (total competition) is short-sighted.

We touched on this in another thread, but the thing is there's hierarchies and "tiers" even in kids' activities, among the moms.

Say a kid loves baseball and HATES soccer...but soccer is the "in" thing run by all the "in" parents and the Little League isn't. Some parents in that case won't even let their kids try out for LL.

I have nothing against SAHMs but there are ones who perpetuate this kind of crap who really need to go GET A FREAKIN JOB.

Disclaimer: I do not have children or run in these circles. I absorb enough of it through my friends and Facebook.

Hmm...I thought you didn't believe in tiers.

Hmm...for a second I thought this wasn't passive aggressive at all.

Oh yeah, no I didn't - just kidding.

Hmmmm when someone starts their sentence with "Hmmm" is it ever anything but someone trying to be bitchy while pretending to be nice?


Hmmmm.

You act like the tiers are fairies. If she doesn't believe in them, does that mean they don't really exist?!:o

Hmmm, I thought you had stopped post stalking me.

But since you obviously have anything I ever posted on a DVD that you keep under your pillow, please quote one post where I ever said I don't believe that there is such a thing as tiers.

I believe in tiers - I simply think they are subjective and counterproductive to a healthy NPC recruitment.

We do this generation NO FAVORS by not teaching them earlier that you don't always get what you want. This is a generation in which every kid got a soccer trophy, participation medal or ribbon for even showing up!

Bwahahahahahahahaha!

The solution is to encourage them to try out for competitive teams, too. It's IMO not a good solution for some children to constantly face rejection, whether that's the reality of their adult future or not. Having them enter school art competitions, or trying out for school plays is good. Signing them up for a soccer team where everyone gets a trophy at the same time is good, too.

No Tears, No Anger, Cause for Concern?
 

Last year, the daughter of a very old friend of mine was released from recruitment early at a competitive rush.

The young woman might have taken the cut too well. There were no tears, no anger, not even a loud silence. Her feeling was "hey, if no chapter wants me, that's their loss, not mine."

My friend was a bit surprised by her attitude. He and his ex-wife was expecting tears and/or rage. Now, he is not sure if his daughter is wise way beyond her years or has an ego the size of Brazil.

Tears, he said, he could deal with. A mature teenager isn't discussed in the daddy handbook.

He probably didn't force the choir to accept a tone deaf kid with no rhythm (that would have been me as a child) or the academic team to take any dumb kids in his quest for fairness.

Also, doesn't this make it even worse for the only 2 who are rejected. If you'd taken 12, there would at least have been 5 that didn't make the cut. Now you've really singled out the extra pathetic. (Not you personally, but you know...)

Whoo boy, there definitely are choirs that are forced to take everyone, even in high school. For 4th/5th grade, most of them are forced to take everyone. Heck, in my school the kids had to participate in choir up through middle school as part of music class -- even the kids couldn't cut themselves from the choir! It is quite unusual to have competitive auditions in elementary school unless we're talking about a pre-professional, traveling choir.
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Yeah, we pretty much all had to sing in public at least once a year through 6th grade, whether we could or not, whether we liked it or not.

I kind of wonder what cheerleaders are needed for in the lower grades to begin with. Do elementary schools have interscholastic sports now?