As a parent you always want the best for your child, as much as you are able to do so. You stimulate them to gain specific knowledge and try to invest in them if they are interested in something. It’s something you do as it might help them later in life and society. I think it’s good to have children try things as it enables them to find out what they like and what doesn’t fit them. There are however parents who have a specific vision about what their child should be and do everything to realise their own dream through their kids.
In Trophy Kids a couple of those parents are followed. There is a father, who thanks to his successful business no longer has to work and spends all his money training his son to succeed as a basketball player. Another wants his daughter to become the next Tiger Woods and spends as much as he can on it. The third father is drilling his son every day to play American Football and a mother who does everything to help her sons reach the top in tennis.
The thing which stands out with all of them is how much they want there children to be successful. Unfortunately they don’t seem to care about coming across as a dictator and not as a father who shows his love for his child. The father of the golf playing girl is so mad at his daughter for failing during a match that he uses words a father should never say about his child. The father of the American football player has such an impact on the psyche of his son that it is very obvious that his son doesn’t enjoy the sport and still gets a verbal beating every time his father thinks he has done something not in the way he should. I found this very shocking to see and wish something would be done against these parents. Unfortunately this documentary misses the story of the children themselves, who hardly are given a chance to speak and no experts talk about the impact of this type of parenting on the children. It makes Trophy Kids a movie which is a bit too one sided.
