You can spot the kid of pushy parents a mile off. The girls all have big, gravity-defying hair that takes hours to tweeze and tong into place, they wear sparkly crop tops to the playground and they always have a big-haired, overdressed mother within petting distance at all times squawking at them not to get dirt on their silver sandals. The boys have a slightly more subtle uniform but they are still about as inconspicuous as Bernard Manning on a feminist float at the Notting Hill Carnival.

Most little lads look slightly grubby from the moment they get out of bed in the morning and continue on a sliding scale of grottiness until bath-time when they are usually completely encrusted in grub and grot from head to toe and need to be blasted with a water cannon before being allowed back into the house.

But boys with pushy parents tend to have an unnaturally polished look about them, as if they have been ritually washed and waxed along with the family Mondeo. They are usually dressed like miniature men in clonky boots and oversized clothes, have haircuts that require generous dollops of gel and are always within earshot of a similarly over-polished father telling them to stop doing whatever it is they are doing like a girl and to do it properly instead.

These children are easy to spot at the moment because they are the exception rather than the rule, but if we are not careful, if we don't put the brakes on society's drive towards institutionalising hyper-parenting, we could soon find ourselves overrun by these modern Midwich Cuckoos.

But what exactly is wrong with wanting our children to succeed? What is so damaging about encouraging our children to work hard and make the most of their skills and talents? Nothing, if encouraging is as far as it goes. But it doesn't.

We live in a society in which children are unceremoniously shoved into competitive arenas from an early age. They face exams at school when their only worry should be whether to opt for skipping or hopscotch at playtime and, when they return home, they are bombarded with endless images and information on the television, on the radio, in books, newspapers and magazines, and on their computer screens that tells them that fame and success are all that matters and that talent is secondary to looks.

There is no denying that parenting has always had a competitive edge. From generation to generation, you have only had to mention the word "potty" to a parent for them to immediately begin boasting about little Johnny's particular talents in that department, discussing training and techniques as if pooing in a plastic pot is an Olympic event.

Hyper-parenting, which was first identified by US child psychiatrist Dr Alvin Rosenfield, is something relatively new to our shores. It is here though, and you don't have to look far from home to find it.

I was stunned at a recent family get-together when my (sort of) sister-in-law told me how she and her husband had been disappointed with their son's latest report card and had ended up having a somewhat heated debate with staff on parents' evening.

Not an unusual reaction you might think, particularly if his GCSEs are just around the corner. But they are not, he is 18 months old and still struggling with the concept that yoghurt is best eaten with a spoon and not scooped up in great gluey handfuls.

And after recounting this tale to other friends, I can say that my (sort of) sister-in-law is not alone and that many parents are prematurely panicking about their children's future.

But is this really the way we want parenting to go, worrying about report cards, test scores and SATs before our children have lost all their milk teeth and, on the other side of the same coin, pushing less academic youngsters into the media spotlight in the hope that they might join the lengthening list of celebs who are famous simply for being famous?

Maybe we should just let our kids be kids for a while instead. You never know, they might actually find their own way through life without us constantly pushing them in what we believe is the right direction.