Kids don't brain around for fun, if you put them in that extremely competitive environment they will compete. Kids have fun playing with their friends. Take it from Terry Tao, who has been through all of this and also has a fields medal: <https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/advice-on-gifte...>.
>[..] any short-term advantage one might gain in working excessively towards such benchmarks may be outweighed by the time and energy that such a goal takes away from other aspects of a child’s social, emotional, academic, physical, or intellectual development.
I'm more radical than him in my viewpoint. Academia and industry is infested with broken people with robbed childhoods. Heed my warning and don't let it happen to your children.
Eh. Kids definitely do brain around for fun. More so if they have other kids (or parentd for that matter) who also like to "brain around".
I do agree that we need to be careful not to focus on things a kid is good at so much that we neglect other areas that they may not so naturally excel in.
>[..] any short-term advantage one might gain in working excessively towards such benchmarks may be outweighed by the time and energy that such a goal takes away from other aspects of a child’s social, emotional, academic, physical, or intellectual development.
I'm more radical than him in my viewpoint. Academia and industry is infested with broken people with robbed childhoods. Heed my warning and don't let it happen to your children.