
Want Passionate Kids? Leave 'em Alone - epi0Bauqu
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/wantpassionatekidsleaveemalone
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chime
The trick my parents played on me was "Your uncle was so good at this at your
age..." First they taught me to look up to my uncle and I still do. He's an
amazing man and I can't write enough about how persistent, hardworking, and
optimistic he is. So as a kid, anytime my parents wanted me to do something,
they would mention how my uncle could do so much at my age (and it was always
true). Instant motivation! Real-life role models are inspiring. Celebrity role
models end up in the news embarrassing everyone.

My parents rarely used themselves in the role-model position because if I was
mad at them, I would do the opposite. But I can never be mad at my uncle. He's
awesome. One of the things they said was that my uncle could use the
calculator without looking at the keys. I didn't believe it till I saw it in
person. Give him a long ledger and he could add/subtract 50 rows of currency
amounts without even looking at the calculator and come up with the right
total time after time. I didn't feel like I had to be that good at a
calculator because I had a computer. But within 6 months I could type without
looking at the keyboard. Inspiration works.

~~~
india
Ahhh yes... But buyer beware as they say... that story doesn't always have a
happy ending. The person I used to look up to as a kid turned depressive and
into an alcoholic. It is very painful to see a real-life role model nosedive
like that and sometimes these things can be impossible to predict.

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bmj
We're taking a bit of a combination approach to our kids. Our six year old is
currently taking piano lessons, but he can make the decision to stop them if
he wants. He's also free to choose another instrument. We didn't prod him into
taking lessons, but it was our suggestion.

As far as physical activities go, we are letting him choose his path. We're
avid climbers, and take our kids with us to the crag, but never force them to
climb. Some days they insist on climbing, other days they're happy exploring
the woods. Both kids love riding their bikes (which also fits with our
lifestyle), and our older son has taken a liking to soccer (though again, we
suggested he try it).

I think it's also important that parents provide the opportunity for their
kids to have autonomy. If they aren't exposed to different things, they'll
never take the initiative to be passionate about something.

~~~
ekanes
>> I think it's also important that parents provide the opportunity for their
kids to have autonomy. If they aren't exposed to different things, they'll
never take the initiative to be passionate about something.

Right on. Our kids are a few years behind you (1,3) but my current thinking on
this is that they have to do 1 physical activity and 1 other activity, but
they can choose 'em.

I wish I could forget 3 years of forced piano lessons as a kid. :)

(I'm talking high-school age more than anytime soon, right now their job is
all about playing and having fun.)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
My parents didn't send me for piano lessons - the other 3 kids in the house
went for them though. This meant I only got to start lessons at about 11
(might have been 12) when they realised I actually wanted to have them.

I really enjoyed playing but always felt an earlier start would have given me
more chance to learn and progress with that instrument. In short I wish my
parents had been more pushy with me (and not just in this as it happens).

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zaidf
Wow that sums it up for me!

Now, if you are a parent and want to HELP your kid with his passion...take 'em
to the library, take 'em to the places where they can delve deeper.

My dad took me to the library on weekends so I could check out programming
books in middle school.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Interpreting the article to fit your suggestion shouldn't you simply let them
know that the library is there if they want to try it.

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michellegreer1
My mom actually didn't want to take me to tennis lessons. I bugged her about
it until she relented. That's why I still play unlike a lot of my friends from
high school.

A very good book about this is called Drive by Daniel Pink. It presents case
study after case study of why autonomy matters to both kids and adults, some
of which were conducted by the Fed. Highly recommended.

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jasongullickson
I can say from experience that this is on the right track.

My only addition would be to say that parents need to be ready to "jump" to
facilitate new interests while at the same time they'll need to accept the
fact that most of these new ventures will "flame-out", and this needs to be
allowed to happen without the typical guilt associated with "giving up".

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Some guilt associated with giving up seems rather a good thing. If you give up
because you're just being lazy or because someone made fun of you then you're
giving up for the wrong reasons. Some activities that improve ones mindset,
health, outlook, happiness are hard and require motivation - developing the
ability to persist with something you find hard or challenging in some way is
also a very important skill.

Your suggestion only works for parents with near limitless means. If my kid
took a passion for piano, say, and we bought a piano we couldn't just buy
something else that year if he wanted to do something else and we'd be
unlikely to sacrifice our holidays 2 years in a row to indulge him if he's
going to quit. You make your bed, you sleep in it.

~~~
jasongullickson
I would say associating a "cost" has value vs. "guilt".

Most children can understand that choosing one activity may exclude another
due to the limited resources available, however making them feel like a bad
person because it turns out that they don't like something they thought they
would like before they had tried it doesn't seem to have any effect other than
to discourage one from trying new things.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
But the realisation that the cost has been wasted is guilt. That is how
associating the cost is of benefit.

In some ways I must discourage my child from trying new things - he has to
somehow, and I'll help however I can, determine before we buy the necessary
equipment whether he is going to appreciate the cost in terms of
joy/fulfilment/health/happiness from the activity. For those super-wealthy
this is obviously a non-issue.

Suppose your child wants to try running an international diamond mining corp.
You're not going to discourage them by not buying one are you, you bad bad
parent you.

;0)

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mousebender
Link that won't expire:

[http://www.livescience.com/culture/children-passions-
autonom...](http://www.livescience.com/culture/children-passions-
autonomy-100209.html)

~~~
Raphael
Off topic: Why do Yahoo links expire? It's quite annoying.

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ryanwaggoner
How do you balance this with the fact that kids have short attention spans, or
that some kids just aren't great at making themselves put in the hard work
necessary to become great at something without prodding from their parents?

~~~
dkimball
From what I've seen, at least, it seems that children don't have short
attention spans intrinsically; they just have short attention spans for what
they find uninteresting.

All aristocrat-peasant societies socialize their population to flatter the
aristocracy, including by pretending to be interested in their interests;
democratic-market societies like the United States are aristocrat-peasant
societies in which everyone is treated as an aristocrat. (See
www.historyexplained.com for the theoretical model of aristocrat-peasant and
tribal societies; but bear in mind that its model of history is wrong. Read
_1491: New Revalations of the Americas Before Columbus_; had the northern
American Indians only been immune to smallpox, we'd think of democratic-market
societies as a shoddy alternative to the one true way of self-controlled
tribalism -- which the Middle Ages, too, had been fitfully evolving into.)

So, the problem is not that children have short attention spans; it's that
they haven't learned to fake interest in the manner expected in Western
societies. (From your name, I'm guessing that you're American or Canadian.)
When a Western child, or a member of most types of tribal societies, is bored,
he or she doesn't try to hide it; by contrast, when genuinely interested in
something, such a person exhibits a passionate interest uninhibited by
concepts of aristocratic reserve.

In short: figure out what a child is interested in -- or rather, let the child
figure that out for him- or herself -- and all the rest should come together
on its own. Just hope it's not an interest that leads to graduate school in
the humanities...

~~~
ryanwaggoner
You seem to have started with the premise that "tribal" societies are superior
in some way. I disagree.

Additionally, kids have parents because they're extraordinarily unskilled at
balancing the long-term perspective against the here and now (granted, many
adults aren't much better). I find it hard to believe that just letting your
kids do whatever they want is really the path to greatness for most kids. I
think parents should help kids explore their passions but it seems there's a
balance to be found where you also don't let your kids give up as soon as it
gets difficult. My parents did that too often, and my wife's parents pushed
her through the rough spots. I won't go into the whole results, but it's clear
to me which is superior.

~~~
dkimball
What aspect of the 'tribal' spirit, as I noted above and as discussed on
historyexplained.com, do you object to? I'm sufficiently fond of freedom, and
sufficiently disgusted by cringing, fawning, and gossip magazines, that I find
such a social structure admirable, although, on the other hand, I'm also fond
of not dying over a point of honor, so there's that too. (And note, part of my
premise above is that "tribal" doesn't have to mean "primitive.")

Also, please explain why you think it's important for parents to push children
when they run into difficulties. I agree that there is a certain amount of
basic knowledge, which everyone should acquire whether they want to or not
(I've even found benefit from statistics classes). But we're talking about
passions -- that is, recreations, not basic knowledge. I agree that
encouraging someone to get through difficult spots -- to reassure them if they
fear failure, to provide superior knowledge and skills on an as-needed basis
-- is a good thing, but the whole point of a passion is that it's something
that the person in question _wants_ to do.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Also, please explain why you think it's important for parents to push
children when they run into difficulties.

So the child can learn that the limits of their ability are beyond the limits
of their self-perceived ability.

We're talking about passionately applying oneself to an activity. This does
not limit the locus to recreation IMO.

~~~
dkimball
That's a good point, but I think that that lesson would be better learned in
the core-knowledge curricula (which the child's going through whether he/she
likes it or not) than by wrecking his/her enjoyment of computer programming or
violins or model-building or first-person shooters or whatnot.

