The suburban secret no parent will admit to.

Is this the secret you wouldn’t even share with your best friend?

I have a secret to confess.

I wonder if I will get judged for it (I am sure I would if I said it on the playground or at school pick up).

I certainly hope you don’t judge my seven-year-old for it because after all he is just a kid.

But I think we are all pretty nice to one another around here so here it goes.

(Deep breath.)

My son attends a before-school reading class one day a week.

There a “qualified educator” sits with him and a group of other kids and helps them read, as well as assisting his slightly wonky writing style (that he inherited from me, sorry sweetheart) and if they are very, very good lets them do some special activities on their iPad.

So if you wanted to you could accuse me of getting extra tutoring.

Because it is.

Having confessed, I now feel the need to justify his intelligence. I feel the need to defend him to those of you thinking my child is the class dunce and I even feel a great desire to scan in a copy of his recent report and say, ‘Well lookey here’.

But I am going to resist (with great difficulty) because I’m trying to be the bigger person here.

He loves his local public primary school but I was struggling finding the time to help him do all that extra reading.

We gave it a try and haven’t looked back.

What IS tough is hearing playground gossip about “those” types of children who get extra tutoring and what “those” types of mothers who “force” their kids to attend must be like.

In the year or so he has been attending - and loving it - the great eye opener for me has been just how much tutoring - of any type - seems to be the great suburban shame.

I’ve heard whispers from other mothers at the centre’s drop off,  “Can you just not tell too many people that Amadeus attends?” they say to me, “You know how other parents can be.”.

“Oh we are only trying this till Hank Pym catches up to where he was a few weeks ago so best not to tell too many people.”

For some reason admitting to getting a little extra help for your kids is akin to admitting to cheating.

What actually is it that nay-sayers don’t like?

Do they feel the level playing field is destroyed if a child spends an extra hour reading a book with a teacher?

Do they feel that I am denying my son the time he could spend riding his bike up and down our cul-de-sac? (He does that plenty after-school thanks.)

Do they feel that he will burn out being secretly tutored at the age of seven? (I wouldn’t send him if he didn’t like it.)

Or do they feel there is an economic disparity that the children from “rich” families will get ahead while those less well off will suffer?

It’s a funny society where it is okay to work hard to provide for our family - but not okay to admit what we actually give them.

My son’s centre charges $10 an hour.

Would you rather me admit to buying two or three coffees for that $10 or pay a bit extra to his education?

One of the other fears I wonder whether this secret society of pro-tutoring parents feel that they will be labeled.

Whether it be a helicopter parent, a Tiger Mum or the newest addition to the list – a snowplough parent.

For the uninitiated a snowplough parent is one who micromanages their children - which accourding to author David McCullough is making a generation of children afraid to be average.

What I say to that is, what’s so good about average?

Isn’t part of parenting about encouraging our children to do the very best they can and then to help them learn to navigate their way through if they don’t succeed?

I’m not too bothered if my son isn’t the top of every subject – but I at least want him to try, and I certainly don’t want him to struggle.

I want him to know that settling for average never got anyone anywhere.

I don’t know a single parent who isn’t doing the very best they can, who doesn’t want anything more than happiness, love and success (YES, SUCCESS) for their children.

And if getting them a little extra help for reading, soccer, ballet or tennis assists in that then I say: Go for it but stop being so ashamed.

Shout it from the rooftops!

“I forgo a pedicure once a week so my kid can read better”. Top that, Nay-sayers!

What do you think about additional tutoring for children (whether it be educational or sports-related)?

CLICK THROUGH our gallery to see some ridiculously funny homework answers from kids (who may or may not have had tutoring)...

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The one challenge no-one warned you about with a teenage daughter.

The crazy things women say while giving birth.

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