The kid’s like: I don’t even like drawing all that much, but I don’t want to disappoint my mom.
Wow that’s cute and bittersweet.
Just remember, parents, it goes the opposite way too. Sometimes a kid has real talent, but lack of encouragement doesn’t push us to cultivate it. Kids pick up on what you say, or don’t say, more than a lot of parents realize.
It really is that simple. I wish I had received this kind of support.
In reality and about 50% of the time:
Kid shows interest in something and the parent leans into it and encourages them, buys them the best stuff.
Kid gets burnt out on the thing and never touches it again.
Source, my daughter who loved art, then cooking, then tennis, then…
As a kid I went from botany, to chemistry, to pneumatics, to rocketry, and then finally landed (heh) on IT. Now I work at a research firm supporting scientists doing (almost) all of the former.
Sampling is important, and has value beyond just the things they sampled and abandoned. The act of trying many different things is itself helpful.
Van Gogh wouldn’t have become the artist he became if he didn’t fizzle out of multiple career paths beforehand.
David Epstein’s Range really explores this idea and puts forth a pretty convincing argument that sampling and delaying specialization is helpful for becoming the type of well rounded generalist whose skills are best suited for our chaotic world.
I agree! I have found a career that puts me right in the middle of IT, film-making and design.
All Areas where I started but never went the full mile…. Well turns out they’re all critical skills to take care of digital signage and hybrid events 😅
Yep. It’s why I try not to lean into anything too hard and get secondhand or minimal supplies. If she latches on, we can look at expanding, but that usually just fizzles out.
Dont get discouraged. Kids who sample or dabble in many interests are more likely to be top performers in their field later in life.
edit: I cant find the actual study at the moment, but it was covered on No Stupid Questions, so they will have provided a citation.
Yeah the move is to be supportive, but follow Adam Savage’s policies on gear: start with the cheapest option that’s serviceable, and go for the best stuff once the cheap stuff breaks (or you get good enough to justify the good stuff).
I’ve dabbled in a lot of hobbies and I follow this principle. Sometimes I get bored, and the low investment was well worth the experience of experimenting. Sometimes I keep at it intermittently, but the cheap gear is sufficient for my use. Sometimes I get good enough to justify the upgrade.
It sounds like the thesis to David Epstein’s book, Range. When I read it, it was a game changer for me.
If I recall correctly, the main examples were Roger Federer (who played a lot of sports and didn’t choose to specialize in tennis until much later than the typical tennis pro), jazz legend Django Reinhardt, Vincent Van Gogh, and a bunch of other less famous, but much more typical examples.
an epstine book being recommended for advice on kids?
it’s better that they try and find out rather than regret not having done so and wonder for the rest of their lives. as long as what you’re doing is encouraging and supporting rather than pressing i say that’s the right thing to do.
I don’t have kids so I’m not going to pretend I know anything about being a parent but there’s a book by Angela Duckworth titled Grit.
The book talks about the science of staying with a hobbie and how some of the greatest in the world was encouraged to stay with a subject, hobbie, or sport when they wanted to give up.
Angela has two daughters. Her rule with them is they have to stay with what ever they choose for a year. When they reach high school, it changes to two years. This puts her daughters in a position to really think about what they want to do next with their lives.
That’s sounds like a great way to create an ADHD kid who hates committing to trying anything and then resents their parents for forcing them to do something they hate. I would not recommend that long of a time period with people that old.
People quit on things too early to know whether they enjoy it and/or are good at it. This is especially true for people with ADHD. Having ADHD doesn’t mean that person cannot commit, it can also mean hyperfocus can kick in after a certain amount of time with an activity.
Resentment can go both ways. People resent their parents for not believing in them, or letting them quit when all they needed was encouragement.
Having ADHD doesn’t mean that person cannot commit
It kinda does. ADHD prevents you from creating habits. People will do something while it is new and interesting but once it becomes repetitive, you’ll need all the stars to align properly to keep doing it.
It can also mean hyperfocus can kick in after a certain amount of time with an activity.
That’s not how hyperfocus works. Hyperfocus is nothing more than being completely focused on a single thing to the point you don’t notice anything else around you. You can’t get hyoerfocused on something that bores you, even if it’s something you’re very interested on.
I was going to protest but then I remembered when I visited a friend’s house and he had a couple of electric guitars gathering dust in a corner and neither I nor any of my other friends knew that he played guitar… Because he didn’t, it was just a one-off thing he never delved into lol.
That’s kinda where I expected the comic to go. Parent tries to be supportive, ends up trying to make it the kid’s whole personality, kid gets burnt out.
This is sweet, happy mother’s day to those moms. My mom pushed me into things I didn’t like and told her I didn’t like. So this gave me emotions lol
Different experience for me. My mum was a lovely person who never pressured me into anything, and in retrospect I wish she had, just a tiny bit more.
She asked for example if I wanted to learn an instrument - and I said no, and she respected that and didn’t push. The truth is that I’d have actually loved to, but I was afraid of failing, and scared to start.
Now in my late thirties I finally bought an electric piano and started learning.
I don’t blame my mum at all, but I guess my point is that kids will very often say “no” to things, because no is the easy answer. If she’d said instead “try a couple of lessons, and if you don’t enjoy it you can stop” then the outcome would have been quite different.
OK but if she actually believed you didn’t want to do it, she did right by not pushing it.
Parents need to figure out when their kids say no because they are nervous and when they say no because they mean no. Ignoring your wishes everytime is not the way to go.
Which is exactly why I said that I don’t blame her at all. She did what she thought was right.
Music in particular I would kind of consider an exception, just because of the benefits of giving early musical education can help so much with acquiring the “language” while the brain is still in sponge mode, 4 to 10 years old.
If you’re forcing your teenager to work at it day and night and to go to the conservatory etc, that’s a different story.
My parents let me be interested in things, but they would absolutely force me to finish things until their period ended, or force me to do at least another year of the activity. So I did a season of soccer before I realised I hated it and only liked softball, and I was thankfully forced to do another year of orchestra in 6th grade, making me realize I loved it and wanted to continue instead of dropping.
I was forced to keep doing dance another 2 years despite hating it by the end unfortunately, but I’m not too upset by that.
Holy shit are you me? Cause this. Things would get slightly tough, they’d ask if I still wanted to do (x) where that’s gymnastics, choir, etc. I’d say yes I want to quit cause I’m a kid, and then we just stopped. I have no idea what I want to exist.
100% this.
Too many parents have things they wish they could do or wish they were good at, and their logic becomes “I wish my parents had forced me to do this when I was younger, so I am going to force my kid to do this even if they hate it.” Growing up in that sort of household sucks, and just causes resentment.
Good parenting is supporting your kid’s interests, while being upfront about expectations. If your kid wants to do art, support their endeavors but be clear that it’s not an easy field to make a living in if that is their goal so as not to set them up for disappointment later in life. Make sure it’s something they want for themselves first.
There’s no catch-all plan for parenting. Some kids need to be pushed, some need space, and there’s no way to tell whether the approach was the best approach until “Monday Morning”. All we can do is reflect later on when kids become adults, and even then who knows what the path not taken would have sown? Hopefully, being loving and compassionate is enough, and the fact that we did our best is what will be remembered.
Happy Mother’s Day to all you Moms out there doing the best you can!
Yeah, I’m in my thirties making a good living loving what I’m doing and she still regularly brings up how sad it is I gave up on my “true passion” - the thing she pushed me into that I told her over and over I didn’t want to do. She cried when I didn’t choose it as my major. So… not applicable in my case
I should clarify that my intent was never to say all children should be pushed. I just meant that there is now way to tell what the right choice would have been until the child is already grown. Of course, dragging a kid kicking and screaming through the mud is never the way, but for every story an adult has about working in a career they hate, there’s another (see below) that wishes they were playing the piano like they were as a child, but gave up when it was hard and their folks let them quit. We can only reflect on the path taken, good or bad, because the path not taken is unknowable. Of COURSE you know now what the best choice was, you are living in the future of your past self.
Unfortunately, all we humans can do is try to gauge what will bring our children happiness in the future, and maybe we get it right, maybe we fuck it up. As long as you are coming from a place of love, compassion, and understanding, that’s all we can do.
I work in the construction industry, and when talking g about safety, we say that you’ll never know the thousands of lives your choices saved. You only know the choices that didn’t. And you’ll never forget them.
Pretty fucking wholesome.
