I need some opinion from you. Feel free to opine on this situation. Judge would be too strong a word.
Prologue - Background about my friend1) My friend is overly ambitious of his kid and he believes being excellent academically for his child is the only way to make himself a very proud and happy parent.
2) His high expectations of his little one is nothing short of coming in first in his entire academic standard. Any other ranking is unacceptable and will not do. He would make sure his own child pay for not achieving his desired outcome, including verbal abuse.
The child is quite a good student academically3) The child used to top his school when he was small but fell behind the top student by a small bit after that. Due to my friend's extreme pride, those were the worst years for him, as other parents would troll him for his child's weak results. His neighbour rubbed it in as well. And best of all? That neighbour's kid himself was, and still is, worse than hopeless. Eating humble pie destroyed his pride entirely.
4) In recent years, his child started to do better academically. But my friend's expectations of the child grew even more ambitious to the point that the kid is expected to nail every single test question in style, let alone getting the answers correct. A best guess, lucky correct answer would be highlighted as not good enough and unacceptable for my friend. He would be onto his child over every sign of weakness. He'd grow impatient on the boy over the smallest mistakes. Needless to say, my friend is NEVER happy with his child, due the boy's imperfections. I have never seen him praise the boy or celebrate the boy's little successes or small progress he makes academically, because my friend is too perfectionist and outcome focused.
So much pride at stake5) He takes issue with the teachers' errors too, who would sometimes chalk off points for correct answers and award points to his classmates for answering questions wrongly. He never liked his boy to score lower than any of his schoolmates. As such, he is never ever happy with the teachers. Losing out to classmates is never an option with so much of his pride at stake.
6) He hired one of the best tutors in the region to tutor his child. Half the time, he would flare up and demean the tutor when the test results are not perfect. He has time and again told me that this tutor is not good enough and has been thinking letting him go from the moment he hired the tutor. In truth, I have seen the tutor help the boy progress. In this upcoming final exams, the boy has a good chance of even topping his entire cohort this year. Maybe the tutor is still performing below my friend's expectations.
The no nonsense disciplined parent7) My friend is very proud of himself as a strict, no nonsense parent and believes that his child is so disciplined academically that he himself is the envy of all other parents. That also meant that he is never satisfied with is own child, because he meant it well for the boy. My friend is only happy when the boy obtains a perfect score for his tests and nails every question in style. Only then, his ego and hunger for the kid's success is stoked well and good. The next imperfect moment in the next test would spell hell and more abuse for the poor kid.
These days, my friend's temper has gotten worse. He looks grumpy and bitter because the final exams are near and the boy has shown signs of losing out to his classmates. The poor boy gets critised and pushed so hard to study everyday that I see the boy getting mentally destroyed. No wonder he hasn't been concentrating, sleeping and eating well. His dad doesn't care about these things. Only results matter!!!
What happened last night9) Last night, my friend told me that his anxiety has gotten so much to him that he started to believe that his child is never good enough. The verbal abuse he gave to the boy when things go wrong and the negative labels he placed on his own child led him to truly believe that his child is rubbish.
10) In his rebellion, the boy challenged my friend to disown him and take his classmate - whom my friend thinks would do better at the final exams - as his own son instead. The boy also hit back by saying that my friend never loved him as a son, but was made to be a tool of his father's pride. My friend responded by telling his son that he is so rubbish that he doesn't see his son becoming the top student in this year's final exams. Issuing challenges, reverse motivation, disciplined and no nonsense approach is my friend's style. Come on boy, prove to your dad that you're not rubbish.
Why do I have this kind of friend?11) My friend confided in me and told me he kind of written his kid off and was prepared to let his kid walk alone leading up to his final exams. But if his son makes the top student, he would re-appear to celebrate with his son and love him back. It would be against the odds, because one parent is a bookmaker, and the other parents are placing bets that my friend's son would not make top student this year.
Why is my friend so hard on his own son?12) Make no mistake. They boy is way better than most of his peers. Just terrible and rubbish by his father's standards, as the expectation is to nail all the questions in style every single time. My friend is not perfect himself. Yet he sets expectations like sky's the limit. He has made loads of mistakes over his lifetime yet expects his son to be God like.
How should I respond to my friend? 13) It appears having the perfect student in his child is the only and ultimate goal in his life, when at the end of the day, it's just studies and results. There's more to life than getting upset and moaning every single day. In fact, I'm getting tired of hearing him moan everyday - "The child could have attained this or that score" in whichever test that has well and truly past. "Everybody is useless" except my friend himself. "We need to change this, that and everything (especially the tutor)" for the better. I've had enough hearing these things!
Epilogue 14) As we lead up to the boy's final exams, my friend has become more and more anxious, upset and unforgiving for his son's past mistakes. I see fear, anger and bitterness are eating his heart out. I know there's a lot at stake for my friend. But is this all necessary, and at the end of the day, emotionally worth it as a person (or parent for my friend's case)? No wonder some kids commit suicide for achieving less than a perfect score... If the kid fails badly in his final exams, I'd probably go on to say that my friend probably played a key part in his son's failure.
Friends, if you have any opinion, feel free to air - as a third person, a parent, a child, a student, another ordinary person on the Kop, or even a reader reading about my poor friend. I'd like to know how you feel after reading this.