Counting Our Blessings and Shortcomings During The Holidays.

[OldCoyote]

Almost every holiday my wife and I are invited to different friends homes to celebrate that holiday.

I consider it an great privilege to be invite to their homes. 

This Thanksgiving we were invited to the Drs's home,  After a great dinner, we were entertain with a concert by the kids.

The kids are from two families, The performance from them was outstanding,  from the eight y.o to the fourteen y.o. 

Each of there kids are academic high achievers, doing well with their music, and in the case of the fourteen y.o. daughter, received her Black belt in Taekwondo!

Which brings up the shortcomings,  How do they motivate their kids to be such high achievers when I can not motive my kids or grand kids to do the same? 

My youngest son, whom is really smart, has a good paying job,  could do so much more.

My grand kids on the other hand are expert at video games. (sigh).

[Deleted]

Sometimes it’s the family culture; DH knew a family years ago where a favorite game was to start a made-up story in one room of the house, and continue from room to room. Each time they moved another family member took up the story- in another language. They were all fluent in English, German, Yiddish and French.

That can be carried to an extreme, of course; a friend who worked at the local Med school said that a fair number of their first-year dropouts were kids whose parents pushed and pushed them for years, and they finally decided that even if their parents wanted them to be doctors, it wasn’t what they wanted.

Some kids just find their niche later. My sister, the typical laid-back middle kid who played the ditzy blonde thing to the hilt, really got into her HS science classes and ended up being a doctor. Her youngest, who had a baby at age 19 with a Baby Daddy my sister described as “a sweet little guy with the brains of a paramecium”, eventually got a degree in X-Ray technology, then got extra training so she could administer radiation therapy, and married an architect who adopted her little girl. DS, who lived for video games and Magic cards, straightened up after I sent him to a military boarding school, squeaked by with a low-GPA Math degree from a good college, but then turned out to be a very good claims adjuster.

And some people just are less driven than others and I suspect some of it is inborn. All you can do is hope they find a way to support themselves at whatever standard of living is comfortable for them.

[Artemis Windsong]

The problem lies in expectations.  Usually a human cannot live up to all of them in a family.  Each of us has our unique talents.  The way we relate with family members.  Live and let live.

[Deleted]

Well, you still have to set done standards and expectations. I raised DS in a very dysfunctional environment; his father was mean and controlling so I went to the other extreme and was too easy on him. I started dating current DH when DS was 12 and he firmly but lovingly made demands on DS and set higher expectations. If it hadn't been for DH, the military school, and my support of their approaches, I'm firmly convinced DS would be living in our basement right now, playing video games.

[Shooby]

Nov 28, 2015 10:14:54 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

Almost every holiday my wife and I are invited to different friends homes to celebrate that holiday.

I consider it an great privilege to be invite to their homes. 

This Thanksgiving we were invited to the Drs's home,  After a great dinner, we were entertain with a concert by the kids.

The kids are from two families, The performance from them was outstanding,  from the eight y.o to the fourteen y.o. 

Each of there kids are academic high achievers, doing well with their music, and in the case of the fourteen y.o. daughter, received her Black belt in Taekwondo!

Which brings up the shortcomings,  How do they motivate their kids to be such high achievers when I can not motive my kids or grand kids to do the same? 

My youngest son, whom is really smart, has a good paying job,  could do so much more.

My grand kids on the other hand are expert at video games. (sigh).

I think it depends on what is important to you.  I know lots of kids who are high achievers but really have very minimal family life.  They are never home.  They don't stay home and cook and bake with mom or have family dinners or play board games, etc.  But, you might not see that aspect.  Parents tend to push the things that interest them as well.  If the parents where high achieving at certain things, I think they tend to focus more on that with their kids.
  Also, some people simply have more energy than others.  Some people thrive on being busy and being on the go all the time where there are others who need more quiet or down time.  Really, though, what is the end goal?  Teaching children to work hard at things is a very worthy approach.  However, in reality, many things are simply Hobbies.  My daughter is taking piano lessons and she plays very nicely.  But, she isn't going to be a professional.  I want her to play for the joy of playing.  She could practice more at the expense of other things, but I intend for music to be something to enrich her life.  The thing about these Tiger moms is that if your kid is spending 3 hours a day practicing the piano, that is 3 hours of time they aren't doing something else.  And, while that can make for a very successful child in many ways, in some ways, that approach tends to stifle creativity and you don't wind up with Bill Gates or other creative minds out of a more rigid approach.

[OldCoyote]

Nov 28, 2015 13:31:39 GMT -5 @tbird said:

some people are talented. It is not the case that training can make an opera start out of anyone. Similar for all types of musical accomplishments. ditto on sports.

These things are probably highly rewarding for those with talent, and a source of frustration and self recrimination for those without it.

similarly, academic accomplishments stem from intelligence and diligence, both of which are at least in part genetic attributes. those with ADD/ADHD, dyslexia or other learning disabilities, will struggle more and tend not to apply as much. 

How sad that your reaction to these gifted children is to denigrate you own. 

This was not so much against the son's or grandson's, more of a failure on my part!

[whoami]

DH spends many hours sitting in cockpits hearing other pilots life stories. The vast majority of them are still on their first wives and are pretty stable financially successful people.

The split is about 80/20 on the kids. They are either very successful or total F-ups.

On the one hand, there are lots of military academy grads, drs, engineers and whatnot.

The rest are in a revolving door of rehab, jail and bad influence friends.

There seems to be very little in between. 

The common theme, is that regardless of which direction the kids went, the parents spent/spend big bucks on them....whether it was to send them to the right private schools to get into one of the military academy's or prestigious college or to pay for the lawyer get them out of trouble.

Ultimately, kids do whatever they want to do. 

[MJ2.0]

I would love it if my mom or my ex-ILs gifted DS a year of martial arts classes. It would better teach him discipline and concentration. I'd do it but I can't afford it. That would be WAY better than more stuff.

[mojothehelpermonkey]

Nov 28, 2015 10:14:54 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

Almost every holiday my wife and I are invited to different friends homes to celebrate that holiday.

I consider it an great privilege to be invite to their homes. 

This Thanksgiving we were invited to the Drs's home,  After a great dinner, we were entertain with a concert by the kids.

The kids are from two families, The performance from them was outstanding,  from the eight y.o to the fourteen y.o. 

Each of there kids are academic high achievers, doing well with their music, and in the case of the fourteen y.o. daughter, received her Black belt in Taekwondo!

Which brings up the shortcomings,  How do they motivate their kids to be such high achievers when I can not motive my kids or grand kids to do the same? 

My youngest son, whom is really smart, has a good paying job,  could do so much more.

My grand kids on the other hand are expert at video games. (sigh).

Can he support himself and save for the future? Is he happy? If so, why isn't that enough?
Also, I sincerely hope that your friends' high achieving kids don't crash and burn in college. I saw that happen to a few classmates, and it's not pretty.

[Deleted]

Nov 29, 2015 13:33:28 GMT -5 @anne81 said:

OTOH DS is clearly talented in other areas.  He's 6 and we've sat down and done the Pythagorean equation (with legos!).  He loves math and asks to do it for fun (we play math games and look for patterns, not focusing on arithmetic operations).  He's a great builder.  The other day he was explaining to me how gearing ratios work on his lego car with motors. He's learning to program and that's been great for his understanding of math concepts like infinity.

I immediately thought of a guy I used to work with- a very smart old guy (72 at the time) who was dyslexic. There was no name for it when he was growing up since he was born around 1920. He was finally able to put a name to it when one of his sons was diagnosed with dyslexia. Fortunately, his teachers saw his math skills early on and encouraged him to pursue higher education, and he became an actuary.  With his talents and your support, he should do well!

[geenamercile]

Nov 29, 2015 13:33:28 GMT -5 @anne81 said:

I think it's a complicated picture from family dynamics to resources to schooling environment to support of interests/talents to motivation to genetics to culture.

DS is most likely dyslexic. Whether or not it will arise to the level of an official diagnosis remains to be seen.  Learning about dyslexia and other "learning disorders" has been very interesting for me.  It's an actual different brain organization in which you use different part of your brain to read than a typical reader would.  It starts off before you can read and doesn't come from lack of practice.  That's why there is so much overlap in symptoms between autism, ADHD/ADD, dysgraphia, dyslexia, etc.  There is a strong genetic component.

Raising DS is interesting and humbling.  I'm an unusually quick reader and picked it up easily.  DS has put in so much more time, has had intensive one on one tutoring, and will never read anywhere near as quickly as I do.  I've begun to realize how much our society tends to assume that if you are a fluent reader you are intelligent and diligent. Our school system tends to reward fluent readers, our way of teaching math is great for good readers (because math facts tend to be stored verbally, like a poem or address) but doesn't focus on deeper math concepts, we time and standardize tests, etc. 

OTOH DS is clearly talented in other areas.  He's 6 and we've sat down and done the Pythagorean equation (with legos!).  He loves math and asks to do it for fun (we play math games and look for patterns, not focusing on arithmetic operations).  He's a great builder.  The other day he was explaining to me how gearing ratios work on his lego car with motors. He's learning to program and that's been great for his understanding of math concepts like infinity.

So I think for a substantial portion of kids teaching them in a way where they are interested and motivated to learn is huge.  Giving them a chance to develop their own interests even if they aren't the ones that society says are valuable (reading, musical instruments).  That takes a lot of time, money, and resources though.

Hello,

If you haven't you might want to research 2E students or twice exceptional students.  James T Webb and sengifted.org/ is a good place to start.  

[HoneyBBQ]

Nov 28, 2015 10:14:54 GMT -5 OldCoyote said:

Almost every holiday my wife and I are invited to different friends homes to celebrate that holiday.

I consider it an great privilege to be invite to their homes. 

This Thanksgiving we were invited to the Drs's home,  After a great dinner, we were entertain with a concert by the kids.

The kids are from two families, The performance from them was outstanding,  from the eight y.o to the fourteen y.o. 

Each of there kids are academic high achievers, doing well with their music, and in the case of the fourteen y.o. daughter, received her Black belt in Taekwondo!

Which brings up the shortcomings,  How do they motivate their kids to be such high achievers when I can not motive my kids or grand kids to do the same? 

My youngest son, whom is really smart, has a good paying job,  could do so much more.

My grand kids on the other hand are expert at video games. (sigh).

Scientists have done a lot of studies of intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. From what I've read, my summary is this:

- extrinsic motivation only works in the short term and is not related to long term success
- intrinsic motivation is the character trait of most successful people
- intrinsic motivation cannot be taught, induced, or extracted. It is innate in the person/child. 

The other key piece of the puzzle is if one can delay gratification - that is also a character trait of successful people. The "you can have one cookie now or 3 cookies in an hour" test. I thank my lucky stars my child always picks the best part of her dinner apart (say, the olives) and sets it aside to eat last.

It sounds stupid, but that's what I've read.

[Deleted]

Nov 30, 2015 12:59:05 GMT -5 @anne81 said:

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because DH is clearly not extrinsically motivated and therefore was viewed as not being motivated at all.  He's a deeply motivated learner in things that matter to him though. He's also got a bit of a rebellious streak in him too. If you asked him to wait for the second marshmallow he'd tell you the system is rigged and there is no guarantee the marshmallow is coming.  

LOL! I like smart kids who think out of the box even though they're high-maintenance at times.

Interesting stuff about intrinsically vs. extrinsically motivated. I sent DS to a military boarding school and it worked- till he got to college and the structure was no longer there. It took him a long time to get his act together, including a wonderful psychologist who helped him manage his ADD, but fortunately he did graduate. Once he got a job that used his great people and negotiation skills, he was off and running.

And, now that I think of it, I worked in college but didn’t kill myself and got a solid B average, back when that would get you a job. When I started working and taking actuarial exams, I failed my first attempt. Boy, was that a wake-up call. Given the “carrot” of promotions and raises if I passed exams and the “stick” of possibly being thrown out of the program if I didn’t pass at least one exam in 3 attempts (commonly called the “3 strikes and you’re out” rule), I buckled down and studied harder than I’d ever studied in college. For me, money and professional status were bigger motivators than grades.

[zibazinski]

Nov 29, 2015 13:06:17 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

I would love it if my mom or my ex-ILs gifted DS a year of martial arts classes. It would better teach him discipline and concentration. I'd do it but I can't afford it. That would be WAY better than more stuff.

Suggest it. They'd probably be thrilled to not have to go into a Toys R Us!!

[MJ2.0]

Nov 30, 2015 14:58:12 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Nov 29, 2015 13:06:17 GMT -5 MJ2.0 said:

I would love it if my mom or my ex-ILs gifted DS a year of martial arts classes. It would better teach him discipline and concentration. I'd do it but I can't afford it. That would be WAY better than more stuff.

Suggest it. They'd probably be thrilled to not have to go into a Toys R Us!!

My mom maybe, but not X's parents. They are stuff people through and through.

[HoneyBBQ]

The problem if you are externally motivated you must always have a reward. If the reward isn't there (figuratively or literally) then the performance drops off. Intrinsically motivated is more likely to perform and action because of the inherent reward in the action itself.

Not to say one is better than the other or anything like that!  

Most of my reading has been based on children and trying to have them grow up to be "successful". There was the "good job" generation, the "of course you did that it's your job" generation, the "tiger mom" generation, etc. It's interesting stuff and of course, not one size fits all in any way.