we tried for music, he loves it but doesn’t have a passion towards it to practice without being asked. So we took that as a No. Same with Drawing and painting.
Maybe with public speaking and Math competitions might work. let’s see. Thank you @sciencenerd
@scikit - I haven’t looked at VEX, looks interesting. I’m going to ask my S to look into. Thank you
@yucca10 - that’s something we are working on to be consistent
If he has a math interest, the Art of Problem Solving site is where to start.
Your son sounds similar to my son. Mine is in 9th grade now but in Middle School one of his big activities was Odyssey of the Mind. You school may not participate or maybe they do something similar like Destination Imagination. If you have either it would be something to check out though it wouldn’t be until next Fall.
As someone above mentioned - Art of Problem Solving. You could do a class from there. My DS took their Beginning Programming and Intermediate Programming classes starting in 7th grade. It’s Python and a good place to start for programming. He also took Geometry from there last year. They were good for him as I think it was the first time he actually got challenged and had to think.
If you’re working on reading, does it mean he’s not enjoying anything enough to fill his free time? Fantasy, science fiction, popular science? Harry Potter?
Instead of trusting to the robot kits, can you find him a robotics club or class through the school, or local park & rec department, or at a community college nearby? If he’s not working on the project alone, he might stay interested longer.
Chess, Sim City, Ano 2070. Does he code? Are there any centers that offer a junior naturalist course? Astronomy, are there any planetariums, HS or colleges that have observation nights?
Hi,
My DS (7th grader) is interested in Robotics and participates in FLL. He loves to build legos, robots and solve puzzles for hours when he is bored. He’s academically gifted and straight A kid, but he’s having a hard time to find his true interest and passion. We have bought couple of robots from Amazon to keep him busy, he builds them out quickly and after few days he is bored again. He repeatedly asks us how to keep him engaged and he is constantly on his phone since he says he doesn’t have anything to do. As a parent we are worried and not sure what other activities will keep him occupied.
Any parent with kids of similar nature and have tried different activities or extracurricular classes which helped your kids to figure out their passion, can you please share your inputs. We are not trying to pad his college applications on extracurricular activities or any such. Just genuinely asking what class/activities will help him keep engaged.
Thank you
Yes…I was just going to comment about these two programs!
Does your son’s school offer them?
My son participated in Destination Imagination for 5 years and loved it. It’s a problem-solving, team-building activity, leading to competitions, with options in several different genres/skills. Really amazing program.
I can tell you that reading a lot of science fiction and fantasy is great prep for the SAT!
Both my kids (one STEM oriented the other less so) both really enjoyed Science Olympiad. There are lots of different events so if you prefer building events you can do those. My favorite to watch was the ones where they made bridges out of balsa wood and then loaded them with heavy weights till they broke.
Both my kids did scholastic chess and enjoyed it at least until they realized that to get to the next level they would have to be more serious about it. They weren’t *that *interested!
Older kid did both math team and academic team. He likes pushing buzzers - not everyone does.
My older kid discovered programming very early. But it’s not for everyone - my brothers loved it, but I became an architect. That said a lot of the programming summer camps are pretty short so you can try it out for a week or two.
Loving music sounds good enough to me. Take away the phone and he may play more? I don’t know of many middle school boys who have a “passion” for multiple things.
E sports leagues? Archery? Private music lessons? Volunteer at the library?
Also CAD and 3D design if he has spatial aptitude. Or learn to cipher. Some kids also like real (non-digital) photography/astro-photography. Also art. Since the kids were little I have more art supplies than anyone would believe. They are encouraged to just make things. They have different things they like to make.
Have you tried raspberry pi? He can make a lot of stuff. Mine made a magic mirror that runs the news and daily reminders taken from their calendar. So many cool things. Only thing I won’t allow are drones. I think it’s rude to neighbors to have someone flying over their houses.
I have a child who is planning to become a professional musician. Until she was 14, I had to make multiple threats each day (“If you aren’t going to practice, you can quit your lesson!!!”) to get her to practice. Once she started, she was fine but getting started was hard.
If he loves music and will practice with gentle reminders, then he was doing great. I’d encourage him to try music again.
I am concerned that you are taking the lack of practice on the part of a 7th grader, as a “no” and ditto with drawing and painting. My son, who also loved Legos, never practiced but band was one of the joys in his life and it provided a social group as well.
As I wrote before, he also later got into theater tech, lighting design and camera work.
We did not own a computer until he was 14. He is now a software engineer and loves to write code. He says that the binary nature of working with Legos was good preparation.
Don’t be in a hurry for your son to find a “passion.” Many never find one but do fine in life. But at his age it is not a reasonable expectation and interests should evolve and change in the next few years. Maybe adjust your expectations for what is a “no” and what is a “yes.”
Above all, he needs to lead.
I think that screen time on phones and computers can be a big problem, as well as video games. Chances are he will want to do more without those distractions, but our culture makes that pretty darn hard.
Mom of a kid who never practiced either, but the orchestra and band formed the core of his friendship group and they really were a great group of kids. He actually played in two different orchestras at school and took private lessons. His teachers always found it annoying that he practiced so little, but he maintained that even if he didn’t practice at home he was playing a lot of violin for someone whose musical talent was very modest indeed. (Good at keeping time, but just never really made the violin sing.)
He also spent a surprising amount of time doing artwork/spaceship design on the computer. While in high school he got interested in origami, started making earrings with his designs and loved being able to sell them.
Rubik’s cube, speed solving and competitions. It’s a great community of kids.
Here’s the gist on speed solving if you don’t know about it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedcubing
Kids don’t need to practice hours a day to be engaged and love an activity. Another person saying if your child loves music, why not encourage?
My D has played piano her whole life (since age 3). She ebbed and flowed with her practice time, especially in middle school. Never diminish her love for her instrument and music. As she got older she got more committed but there was zero push from me.
My S played chess - lots of chess. We traveled to tournaments in the US, Mexico, and Canada (and had a blast along the way). He started using a chess engine in analyzing his games and that led him to try to program his own chess engine. That accelerated his love for computer science. Currently a senior as Stanford CS. Still plays a little chess on the side.
This is really typical of middle schoolers as they try to find their “thing”. It’s good to try stuff but not everything, in fact most things, won’t stick. I remember my daughter announcing after we enrolled her in every sport imaginable, “I just think I don’t much like sports with balls”. So we backed off and moved on. But it’s hard when you want to help your kid find their passion, and that doesn’t seem to be the easy things a lot of other kids are into. The good news is Robotics can be continued on in high school and the involvement then is usually more significant if that’s something you want. My daughter’s team continued to meet and do things year round and for those really involved it could be a significant time commitment at times. She had another activity that took up a lot of her time by then so she was not one of the super involved ones.
It seems like you have gotten some great advice on some interesting activities.
I assume his Robotics season has ended? Is there anyway he can help out with the high school team? Their season is just getting started. I remember a couple of kids on my daughter’s middle school team doing that…but maybe they had siblings on the high school team? Did his team have any advisors? Like teachers or high school aged mentors? Those might be great people to reach out to for advice. They might know of other activities similar to Robotics that might be a good fit for your son.
Good luck!