@blossom That is exactly what my D would like to happen. She loves biology and took anatomy and physiology in HS then decided that she wanted to look into PT. She spent a day shadowing a PT and decided that is what she wanted to do. She is intending to major in dance (BA) and Exercise Physiology.
LV- would it have helped your D to be told when she was 8 years old that she didn’t have the body type for dance? Or to be told that the odds of her making it as a dancer were so tiny that she should give it up and take soccer or just watch TV after school like every other kid on the block?
I doubt it. Crushing a kid’s passion in the name of “Reality” strikes me as a bizarre parenting technique.
@bjkmom - what you said in your post seems a bit like tracking of old. Just because a kid is “bad” in math in your class, you have written them off for med school. I have plenty of friends that are doctors and while we were at Yale I saw them struggle in organic chemistry, math and a lot of their STEM type classes. Now at 55/56 they are very successful doctors because being good at math and science are not the only things that make you a good doctor. Drive and dedication are. A love for people and to ease human suffering is. The need to be “god” and make a lot of money is also a great motivator. Point being, just because a kid in a particular class does not do well ( and I am not picking on you or your class in particular) does not doom them to a life of manual labor. Heck, isn’t there some guy that was 5’7 that played in the NBA? I sure many people told him he was too short his whole life.
Just some thoughts.
We paid for dance lessons since she was 4 years old. We have never told her not to follow her goals. We asked her when she was a sophomore if she wanted to do something else theater etc. but she said no. She danced at a high enough level that she could recognize talent in others and realized her own short comings. I’m sure that perhaps her teachers might have said something but if it hurt her feelings she never let on. I still think that people are going to have disappointments in life. The sooner a child understands that the better. It is how you deal with those disappointments that determines much of how you will deal with life in general. I’ve always told my kids I’m proud of their efforts and happy for their accomplishments. Not all efforts result in accomplishments and I can be sad for them when things don’t work out but still proud.
" I still think that people are going to have disappointments in life. The sooner a child understands that the better. It is how you deal with those disappointments that determines much of how you will deal with life in general. "
- I strongly support that and I believe that sport in my D’s life played a crucial role in her personal development, something that my adult D. does not quite realize but I can see it very well. Being a gracious winner and recognizing your shortfalls after loosing and not taking them personally but rather thinking that the harder you work the closer you get to overcoming your limitations, while some of them will always be there, this seems to me the major reason to involve kids in various non-academic ECs, throw them into different environments to learn many useful skills that are applicable to life in general. .
Just noticed something " a kid is “bad” in math" - there is no such thing as being bad at math. It is created artificially to excuse bad teachers, there is not much more into it. Math is another language that happened to be universal and that good teacher could teach in a way that makes it understandable to everybody.
When my dyslexic husband was about 14 his dad sat him down and presented 3 vo-tech careers he could pursue in high school and told him to pick one. He was the only one of his siblings tracked into a particular career. It was hugely demoralizing.
I don’t know what possesses people to think they can accurately judge what someone else is going to be capable of over the course of their lifetime. Who gets to decide what’s a worthwhile endeavor? And how good do you have to be before it’s an acceptable activity? People shouldn’t pursue ballet unless they’re on track to perform with the American Ballet Theater company? They shouldn’t bother with acting if they’re not potential Oscar winner material? Why can’t they strive to be whatever they want to be?
“I don’t know what possesses people to think they can accurately judge what someone else is going to be capable of over the course of their lifetime. Who gets to decide what’s a worthwhile endeavor?”
I agree and think that is why either statement “You can (or cannot) be whatever you want” is misleading. I doubt many would have pegged Mugsy Bogues for the NBA. I bet many more were telling him he couldn’t do what he wanted than that he could. But he kept competing and ended up a 5’3" guard in the NBA. There hasn’t been anyone nearly that short since. It’s best to cheer, encourage, console and support but don’t lie. There have been numerous examples of successful people who could easily have been told they weren’t cut out for what they wanted to do. Albert Einstein comes to mind. He did not do well in math as young student. Kurt Warner was an undrafted QB out of Northern Iowa who played in the arena league before someone gave him a chance. He worked as a stock boy before he was brought into the St. Louis Cardinals. In each example no one was telling these individuals that they could do anything they wanted they went out and kept doing. On the flip side I am sure Johnny Manziel was constantly told he could do what ever he wanted and if it was to be a great professional QB he has failed miserably despite his potential.
I think we should let children dream, but at the same time help them manage their expectations and help them distinguish the difference between realistic expectations and just plain fantasy. I also think that as children grow and mature, they tend to take what adults say to heart. So if you tell your child, you cannot be a movie actress or an astronaut or a doctor, whatever the profession is, the child may internalize this and forgo even trying. Sometimes there are more lessons in trying and failing then just not trying at all because someone told you that you couldn’t. We shouldn’t place limitations on our children’s dreams, but rather encourage them to realize them.
I challenge this. There are definitely differentiatable levels of ability in math, and some of those levels are quite low. Even if nothing else, dyscalculia is an actual thing.
In my experience, just about everyone is capable of learning math up to algebra II - I have had to work with quite a lot of people, and they do eventually get the hang of it with the proper amount of repetition and the correct approach.
Calculus is a different matter. I have seen people who are otherwise pretty intelligent who just straight up cannot do calculus no matter how hard they try. It just simply does not click with them and they cannot grasp the concept of how it works.
My AP English teacher told me that I couldn’t write. This turns out to have been an inaccurate assessment – I could write just fine, but I was having huge difficulty analyzing literature.
I took the teacher’s comment to heart throughout college, where I went out of my way to avoid writing-intensive classes because I was afraid I would fail them. Then, after college, I had opportunities to see how other people write, and I realized that I was actually an above-average writer. I stopped avoiding situations that involved writing, and I ended up in a very writing-intensive career, which has worked out well.
Sometimes I wish I could go back and take some of the classes that I avoided in college because they required a lot of writing.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with holding older children responsible for what they say is their dream. An unfortunate side-effect of this you-can-be-anything mentality is that dreaming has replaced goal-setting. A dream is just a fantasy if it is not accompanied by planned incremental steps toward reaching the objective. That’s why we see too much of what musicamusica noted at the art school: kids who claim to want something yet who have demonstrated zero progress toward achieving the desired prize.
If Johnny says he wants to play soccer for the MLS, then I’d encourage him to go out in the back yard and practice ball handling skills every day. If he does, and he improves, then I will consider having him try out for a travel soccer team, and so on from there. But if he says he wants to be a professional player and never practices on his own, I’m not going to make him quit soccer. However, I’m also not going to move him out of the town rec league into something requiring more commitment either.
That said, I think too many parents lay the whole motivational burden on the child. Very few young children are going to be able to sustain motivation without encouragement and reminders. “Did you practice piano today? No? Well, go do that now before you watch TV. Remember, you said you wanted to play that song for your aunt when she visits, so you’d better work on it a little every day, right?” Having to say those things doesn’t mean the child isn’t serious about his goal. It means he’s still a child. We have to model executive function for our kids.
Funny, at Target yesterday I saw Easter-themed T-shirts that said “Every bunny can be anything.” (or something similar).
"Funny, at Target yesterday I saw Easter-themed T-shirts that said “Every bunny can be anything.” - It is really funny, considering that bunny could be nothing but “a bunny”, nothing else at all!!!
In regard to motivation, it could go either way, depending on a child. When I witnessed my D. doing her homework way too long, I used to demand her to stop, put everything away and do something else, go see her friends, whatever. I felt that sometime she did not know when to stop. It is important not to go overboard with anything, life needs to be balanced! It is funny (just like above) that later on in her life, D. mentioned that she prefers environments that allow her to have a balanced life, or at least to strive to have a balance in her life. I guess, my efforts/pritching were not wasted after all!
Interthreaduality alert!
Somebody needs to alert the folks over on the thread discussing the unfortunate comments made by the (now former) president of Mount Saint Mary’s Maryland a few weeks ago about student bunnies.
“That said, I think too many parents lay the whole motivational burden on the child. Very few young children are going to be able to sustain motivation without encouragement and reminders. “Did you practice piano today? No? Well, go do that now before you watch TV. Remember, you said you wanted to play that song for your aunt when she visits, so you’d better work on it a little every day, right?” Having to say those things doesn’t mean the child isn’t serious about his goal. It means he’s still a child. We have to model executive function for our kids.”
Our D13 was a violist and wanted to take private lessons. We figured if we were paying for private lessons she should practice. Since we wanted her to have some skin in the game we told her that she had to pay for one weekly lesson a month out of her allowance or other money she earned. If she practiced a certain amount each week we would pay her portion. She agreed. Soon, however, she began not to practice and figured out if she missed one weeks practice she would lose the benefit so why bother worrying about practicing at all. Mom and I were tired of fighting it so we decided that she would pay for her lessons and we would pay her to practice. It required about 2 1/2 hours of practicing a week to cover her lessons. It got better but she also had to pay out a good bit. What we really did with the money was put it into her 529 account so it really went back to her in the end. She now plays viola for her college orchestra.