I was thinking about people that push you to be better. I was asked today why a lot of poor people tend to do better in school then the richer people. It got me thinking. I always believed that the reason I did well in school was because I worked for it. I want to believe I did this for myself but in reality I really didn't. I don't find grades to be that important. I find that the person you are is much more important.
The people that pushed me to do well with anything that I tried to do were my parents. I know most parents push there kids to do well. But my parents are the kind that they kind of categorize myself and my siblings.
My sister was the musical one. Anyone who knows her knows this is true. She can play anything and has one of the best singing voices I have heard in real life. She is very good at music.
My brother is the brain. He is very smart and is considered a genius. He is almost done with college to be a computer techy person. I don't even understand what he does. He can hack and build them and fix them. Like my sister with music he can do anything that has to do with computers.
Me? Well I was the jock. But being the baby in my family I had to live up to being as good as my older brother and sister in their fields. I was the semi-pro ballet dancer, the softball player, the tennis player. I also had to be the theater geek, band geek, and all around nerd. Not that I hate these things. I love music and theater. I also love reading. I just really didn't have much of a childhood.
I know a lot of kids do a lot of things. But most of my elementary/Middle school life this was my schedule.
Wake up at 6 get on the bus and get to school. Do school until 3. Right from school to dance practice for 3 hours. After that I got a sandwich in the car on the way to theater practice. While I was not on stage I was backstage doing homework or reading Shakespeare. At 10 get home and in bed. Repeat.
When I decided that I wanted to quit the dance team my parents, my Dad in particular, was very disappointed. I didn't really have that much time for friends and I was getting to the stage where I wasn't just happy living in books. And the few friends I did have were not my own age. They were much older than myself, they were mainly from theater.
My parents kept trying to pressure me to get back in to a dance team. I was good at it. I know this and I liked doing it but not at the expense of my own life. 3 hours of practice everyday and a 6 hour practice on Saturdays was just a little much for me to handle. And I had to face it that even if I got to be professional after about 10 years my job is over and you become too old and no good.
So my question is that is good to push your kids to do something that they may be very good at but is not the best for them emotionally? I don't think kids are something to be molded. I think they need to find their own way. I am not saying I wouldn't encourage my potential kids to do whatever they wanted and to do it well. But I am saying that putting your kids in a certain label is wrong. Any thoughts?
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So essentially, it sounds like the question you're asking is whether or not it is the right of the parent to decide what their children will do? If not, too bad, that's the question I'm answering.
ReplyDeleteIn a sense, both yes and no. I believe the parents are responsible for providing as much of the opportunity for involvement as they can provide, but pigeonholing their children into any one activity, especially when the child is old enough to make their own decisions is indeed wrong.
I personally had complete freedom to join pretty much anything I wanted with more or less complete support from my parents, provided I could find a way to finance it. As such, I was never really involved in too much. Became a bookworm of the most voracious kind.
I think though that I gained a certain level of independence from that. I am my own person, and can find happiness pretty much anywhere.
But high school and college both have really changed that. That independence has taught me confidence, and expanded my horizons. I feel comfortable trying pretty much anything I set my mind to, because I was never forced to do any one thing.