When my brother was 16 you would have predicted a bleak future. He got a D or F in virtually every high school class (he goofed and got one A in a course that caught his fancy) and the day he graduated HS was a story to be told elsewhere. He worked as a supermarket checker for several months and then joined the Air Force. Four years later he left the AF and decided to go to college. At that time, you could get into Penn State–at least to a satellite campus–if the sum of your SAT quintile and your HS graduation quintile was no more than six. He was in the fifth quintile of his HS class and the first in his SAT, so he got in. Four years later he was a certified computer nerd and had and extremely successful career as a freelance systems analyst. Sadly he died of glioblastoma at 57.
However, later research has cast doubt on the marshmallow test.
Famed impulse control ‘marshmallow test’ fails in new research
Why Rich Kids Are So Good at the Marshmallow Test
*Affluence—not willpower—seems to be what’s behind some kids’ capacity to delay gratification.
*
I’d be interested in seeing where other posters were at 16, if they’d like to share, and how that compares to where they are now. At 16, I was a lazy and mostly unmotivated kid, shy and romantically frustrated, with a loose circle of friends that fell into the “nerd” clique at school. I coasted in class and still got A’s and B’s – enough for the honors classes but not enough to be the very best in the class. I played sports but wasn’t very talented. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up, and didn’t spend a ton of time thinking about it. I was a nice kid and mostly played by the rules; occasionally ingesting illicit substances with my social circle was the limit of any rebellion. I got along well with my parents and my older brother.
Now I think I’m doing fine – I’ve mostly played by the rules and, in my late 30s, I’m in good health, I own a nice home with my wife, and we have no debt aside from the mortgage.
At 16, I was very shy, a good student. Never in trouble. Small group of friends.
At 53, I’m a bit more outgoing (came with age). Still a rule follower (never even a traffic ticket). Married with no debt other than mortgage either.
I’m thinking that other than perhaps gaining more confidence over the years, I’m of a similar personality to my 16 year old self. So marshmallows and Up series would hold up with me.
Sounds like me, except I didn’t get a lot of As and Bs. I probably wouldn’t have gotten any, except my parents hounded me to do my homework and study. If I didn’t maintain a B-average, I couldn’t get the “good student” insurance discount, and wouldn’t be allowed to drive the family cars. That was a powerful incentive, but still a rather low target. I still managed to get the occasional D, and actually got an F for the final quarter of social studies in my junior year.
I went to a four-year college, and turned in similarly lackluster academic performance for the first couple of years studying mechanical engineering. Then something clicked near the end of my sophomore year, and suddenly I found an internal motivation to do good quality work; I began regularly making the Dean’s list, frequently with 4.0 report cards. After receiving my bachelor’s degree I continued on to grad school, earning an MS and a PhD. I doubt that anyone seeing me at 16 would have predicted the path I ended up on.
I didn’t learn how to actually work hard until my time in the Navy. In college (physics major) my HS-level coasting wasn’t enough, but I still didn’t exactly work terribly hard (the key, I found, was to actually show up to every class, and then if I did poorly on a test I could go talk to the professor and they’d usually take pity on me because they recognized me and assumed that, as one of the very few students who went to every class, I was actually studying hard), and got mostly B’s with a few C’s. The Navy forced me to work hard – there wasn’t any other option.
Yes, 16 is the wrong age for predictions.
Adolescents have adolescent issues, which may obscure their real character and potential. Adolescents may be overly shy, or overly rebellious. They may be trying to be cool, or trying to fit in with a peer group. They may have all kinds of ideas they will later discard.
That’s why 6-7 years old is a far better age to predict a child’s future. They are still natural enough and open enough to give a good idea of what they are really like, and they will probably revert to that later if they were different during adolescence.
Your therapist is fucked up and if you take that advice you’re going to fuck up your sons. I remember your thread on the subject. You were the one who said you were “done with” your teenage sons because they smoked pot. People here recommended you get counseling and it sounds like that was the wrong idea, if your therapist is recommending you to “disengage” from your **teenage **sons because they smoked pot. What a horrible thing to say.
If they turn out to be screw ups and go nowhere in life, it’s not the pot smoking that caused it, it’s that their mother decided they were worthless when they were still teenagers for the sole reason that they smoked pot.
As far as I can tell, pot use in my college had zero impact on future success, measured 50 years later.
If that’s what the therapist really said, yes, the therapist is fucked up. I think it’s quite possible that the therapist actually said something along the lines of “You need to let go because your children are their own people, you can’t control everything they do, and sooner or later most children do things that disappoint their parents,” and the poster interpreted it to mean “You need to disengage as they will most likely be disappointing to you.”
Perhaps so, but then she is interpreting it as “your children will be a disappointment and you should write them off completely,” which is really screwed up and is not what she should be getting out of therapy. She’s talking about two 15 & 17 year old boys who smoked pot.
Sorry if I don’t view smoking pot as “no big deal” at the ages of 15 and 17. The post was referring to predicting future behavior based upon 16 year old behavior. I was giving an opinion based upon my experiences. My teens are in a bad way and will most probably continue the trajectory. Therapy notwithstanding, my sons will make their choices.
You don’t have to view pot smoking as “no big deal” to see that a mother deciding her teenage sons are worthless and a disappointment just because of the pot smoking, is really really fucked up. You punish them, ground them, whatever, for breaking your rules. All you have ever posted about them, is that they smoked pot. Have they done anything else to be “in a bad way” that would deserve their mother thinking of them like garbage?
I guess since they smoked pot they may end up becoming President one day. Better adjust your expectations.
Here we go. Trotting out the old “But Obama, Clinton and Bush smoked pot!” You ever think that they might be the exceptions, not the rule?! For every Obama, there are probably dozens of others who fail to launch from their couches and watch their plans and dreams slide away.
I’m realistic. Once you’ve been getting high at 15, you’re probably always going to be a drug user.
Sorry if it offends people here. This refers back to the original post, so we’re not veering off topic. If you’re using drugs at 16, you will always be using drugs. There.
What do you base this on?
If they grow into adults who drink moderately but don’t smoke dope, is that the same?
People can adapt their behavior based on their environment, they aren’t simple DNA machines rolling toward the future on rails. Maybe they’ll quit smoking when they escape the clear resentment you project towards them and their father?
Your sons got that out of control DNA, huh? What if you discovered your husband, as a teen, drank or smoked pot? Disengage or divorce?
Husband had a few beers during teenage years, but no drugs.
His older brother smoked pot. And yeah, continued to smoke pot. And no, I would not have married his brother. Not a lot in common. (RIP - he passed away two years ago)