How much did you "push" your kids

alh
Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:10:26 +0000

mackinaw wrote:

Our goal was to give each child tools and opportunities to learn, not targeted on specific achievements or goals but instead on discovering and developing their interests and talents. We tried to make learning interesting by providing books, games, museums, travel, computers, sports, music lessons, you name it. But they themselves had to find out what they were interested in.



ditto. also to post 63. My children have told me they feel we never pushed them to do anything academically. This was our goal because we wanted them to be self-motivated. We made opportunities available. We wanted our children to understand acquiring knowledge is fun and that they could do it themselves. Absolutely anything they expressed interest in was enthusiastically explored. We taught them research skills from an early age. We didn’t treat any area of inquiry as more important than another. I read all the books my children read so I could discuss them and as they grew older we discussed them more critically. I read a lot of really bad books. along with some really wonderful ones. Sometimes they would read my recommendations. We took them to theatre, museums, etc because it was fun… as a treat. During the dinosaur stage of child development we saw more natural history museums in the US and Europe than I ever knew existed. We allowed them to set the travel agenda. I learned a lot along the way about antique weaponry and Egyptian funerary practices and astronomy and geology. And marine life… I am not sure if there is an aquarium in this country I haven’t had the opportunity to tour. We are storing a word-class lego collection and a serious amount of role-playing materials and anime. My children have been extremely successful academically (and in the rest of their lives ;)) and the last one just got accepted to grad school. Hooray! As adults they all still love learning and are excited about school, which makes me very happy.

One of my children always has loved memorizing lists. When he discovered those vocab lists, he did memorize them and he also did those SAT problems of the day on college board when he found out about them. He was the kind of young child who wanted flash cards for Christmas. We obliged but did not in any way encourage this behavior. He has always been at the very top of whatever class he is in, but that is because of his interest in achieving that goal, nothing to do with how he was parented… of that I am postive!