In a hyper-competitive society like China, it is understandable that parents will do almost anything to help their kids get ahead. But falling for the classic "get smart quick" school scam crosses the line from instinctive to stupidity.

According to a recent article in the Sichuan-based Huaxi Metropolis Daily, nearly 200 parents in Chengdu reportedly spent 98,000 yuan ($15,788) per head on an "intelligence developing" training course for their children, which claimed that it could make students become "uncommonly" smart in a short period of time. Examples of its curriculum included learning how to determine the color of an object without seeing it, and being able to recite an entire book after just one reading.

This "intelligence developing" scam was not a solitary case. In 2012, a similar training course in Shanghai's Minhang district claimed that it could teach children to memorize a 100,000-word article within three minutes. This course also attracted over 200 parents, who genuinely believed that their children would learn the "supernatural powers" being advertised. The course organizers grossed more than 12 million yuan before being eventually charged with fraud by local authorities.

In both of these cases, along with many, many others, the parents became enraged and complained to the police and the media only after realizing that their children had not become overnight prodigies. In their hackneyed complaints, they blamed the authorities for failing to protect them from the fraudsters, not realizing that it is they who are to blame for their own gullibility.

Gullibility isn't even the right word for what is occurring. It's more like blind faith. Most of these parents came of age in the 1970s and 80s, an era when the average family was still reliant on the State for jobs and schooling. They themselves were just a little too late to benefit from the modernizations and advances that China's educational system has made since then, so now they determinedly pin their own hopes and dreams on their offspring.

The upside to this projected ambition is that Chinese students today are blessed with a wealth of knowledge and skills and options and opportunities. The downside, of course, is that in addition to being spoiled by all the attention and indulgences that these parents rain down upon their only children, students are also dogged by high expectations, such as acing their Gaokao (national college entrance exams) and, in the instances cited above, learning supernatural powers.

What's worse, the excessively competitive environment of today's Chinese society has led to parents' intolerance of their children "losing at the starting line." Sohu.com reported last year that most primary and middle school kids in Shanghai are overwhelmed with numerous after-school and weekend cram schools and training courses that their parents enroll them in. One third-grader in Xuhui district recently complained to the media that his parents force him to take six courses on weekends.

The Chinese idiom wangzi chenglong (literally "hope a child can become a dragon") is used to describe parents who have great ambitions for their children. And this is not a negative thing. Wanting the best for your child is inherent of all loving parents. Nonetheless, today's "tiger" mothers and fathers should ease up on all the pressure they are notoriously putting on their children just to make up for the parents' own regrets.

But if you insist on making your child sacrifice their childhood by enrolling them in "get smart quick" schools, then at least use a little bit of smarts yourself before falling for the latest scam.