Ever have your parents or teachers tell you, “You can grow up to be anything you set your mind to”?
Is this still a good thing to tell children?
What if the kid grows up believing this, tries his/her best and yet does not acheive his/her goal? What do you say then?
Why not something like, “If you want to achieve something, try your best, but if it looks like your goal is out of reach, don’t be ashamed to move on to something else.”?
Opinions?
As you watch the child progress, you’ll see that they are naturally inclined to do some things better than others. While you don’t want to let them slide into some terrible deficiency in a vital life skill (what I mean is don’t just ignore that with which they have difficulty mastering), encourage them to play to their strengths.
Geez, I sound like a self-help book.
I agree with Ringo—encourage them in the areas where they are especially strong.
Don’t let your own biases and fears influence them. For instance, my sister and I both showed a noticable amount of artistic potential at a very young age (my kindergarten teacher noticed it, and every teacher from then on). My mom, fearing that my sister and I would starve as artists, did everything she could to discourage us from being artistic.
Don’t do that. (I didn’t think you would, but take care to not even do a subtle variation of what my mom did. It sucks, big time. By the way, my sister and I never did give up art, but it wasn’t because my mom’s lack of trying.)
Don’t give your kid false hope, though. A friend of mine is tone deaf, and yet no one wants to tell her she is tone deaf. (Except for me, I believe. I told her once when she was a young, and haven’t brought it up since then, because she tends to make scenes.) She really believes she has a “beautiful voice”, because some pople have flattered her and allowed her to continue in her delusion. I believe anyone who tells her this is cruel. Sooner or later some extremely blunt person will let her have it, and she will be devastated.
While I think that it’s cruel to allow someone to believe in a pathetic delusion, I don’t think it’s right to discourage them outright. Your assessment of their ability may be wrong, after all. (While I am convinced that my “singer” friend is tone deaf, I’d never tell her to give up singing. I have merely told her that she is tone deaf, in my opinion. It’s up to her to decide what to do with that information.)
Remember that some talents and aptitudes are “buried” inside a person, and can be brought out of them if they have enough patience and dedication. For instance, I’ve seen people with only a little artistic talent who have gone on to do wonderful work—they just wouldn’t give up. And other people with more innate talent go nowhere, because they were lazy and unmotivated.
So I guess I’m trying to say, you never know. I would be more apt to encourage a kid with “average” talent if they seemed really passionate about it, but if they are the kind that flits from one interest to the next, well, that’s different. I wouldn’t encourage someone to pursue something when they show no real talent in it, AND they tend to have a short attention span anyway.
I would say try to find the kid’s strengths and tell him about them. Even if you have to dig pretty hard, tell them something true and nontrivial, because they’ll notice empty platitudes.
Like the kid I used to help a lot when I worked in a school; he was slow and behind the other kids his age by quite a bit. Over the school year, I watched him grow up a lot. He is probably never going to be a rocket scientist, but I could honestly tell him that he was not a quitter and always stuck to the job, no matter how hard it was for him. Which is IMO a better strength than high intelligence, in the end.
I think it’s important to reward children (or, hell, anybody) for their effort, even if the end product isn’t so hot. For example, “What a nice picture! I noticed you coloring all afternoon. You’re such a hard worker! It’s for me? Why, thank you! It makes me feel good that you took the time to make this for me.” Also, praising improvement is important. “At your piano recital, I noticed that you did a very good job on that passage with all the sixteenth notes that gave you so much trouble while you were practicing. Good job!” Even if the rest of the piece was a trainwreck!
(This isn’t always easy, but you’ll improve with practice. A couple semesters of grading essays made me pretty good at finding something to make a positive comment on before moving on to “You need to improve your grammar and be less repetitive, and it wouldn’t hurt you to do some actual research, bonehead.” [sub]Whoops . . . did I type that out loud?[/sub])
As for trying to be realistic with kids, I dunno, my mom always told me I could do anything I wanted, and as far as I can tell, she still believes it, no matter that I tell her I’m pretty sure I’ve found my personal ceiling (with a resounding thump, believe me.) I don’t know if I’d have gotten as far as I have without her believeing in me. Maybe the “moving on to something else” is the way to mitigate it, if you feel you have to. Emphasize that the child has many talents, and that they should all be exercised (and celebrated), no matter what they end up doing.
Realistic optimism is an important quality to possess. Sometimes a person would be wise to consider other options. Getting the attitude, “never quit, never give up” is useful at times. However, reality and experience sometimes sends a message that tells us we should move on with our lives. Sometimes we have to say no to the good things so we can say yes to the great things.
I think we should encourage our children to take risks and to view failure as a stepping stone to future success. I think one should emphasize process at times, and outcomes at other times.
Sorry for the hijack, ** yosemitebabe ** , but how would you know whether someone is tone deaf or not? I’m interested in this since I suspect I could be (though I didn’t know the word “tone deaf”, nor any equivalent in my own language, I think I understand what it means). I’ve been told many times since childhood that I sing awfully, but even when corrected, I barely notice the difference. Also, when hearing different notes, if there isn’t a wide difference, I’ve a hard time telling which one is, for instance, the sharpest, while I noticed since junior school that even people who know nothing about music usually don’t have much problem telling them apart.
So, I’ve suspected for quite a long time that I’ve some problem when it comes to discriminate tones, though I never heard about “tone deaf” people before reading your post.
So, how could I know?
This is outstanding advice. I know quite a few parents - one in particular - who just *gush * over every little thing their precious progeny puts out. Not only does this set the child up for a great devastation in the future, it also can and will turn the child into an attention whore.
Quite often what ever the parent is good at ( carpentry, building, sports, domestic things) will often become of interest to the children to try because they see Mom and Dad (grandparents too) trying and enjoying them.
But it is very important to allow/guide/require children to try a little bit of everything in order to be exposed to all facets in life. I shunned the kitchen as a kid and was allowed to. Now I am essentially quasimodo in that room (even after two kids) but I am now learning what most people my age learned years and years ago. I blame it on two parts: me not wanting and mom being a Kitchen Nazi shooing everyone away.
Patience is key and showing your child ( or any child) interest in what they are learning/doing will not only allow you to talk to your child on a different level but understand your child more fully. Sometimes you will know your child so well you will know what they are going to think before they do.
My mom thought that the worst thing in the world was a spoiled child. To that end, I never knew that I was special in any way so I never thought I was much at all. I was surprised and never totally convinced that I WAS kinda cute, smart and talented. Pretty poor tools to start Life with if you ask me.
The other thing I heard a million times was “You aren’t living up to your potential.” After a while I just wished these people would tell me what the hell my potential was so I could work with it.
With my son, I try to be balanced. I applaud effort without fail and I try to be gentle but firm when I know he’s hosing me. I explain What his potential is and Why he should use it. He’s smart, but still a kid and I am not a perfect parent and the phrase “Do you want fries with that?” has crept into many of our discussions about Why You SHould Do Better.
Mostly I think balance is the key to everything.
That sounds like a pretty good description of “tone deaf” to me. You can usually tell when someone is tone deaf if they sing, their pitch is way off, and they can’t seem to correct it, or hear that they’re not on pitch. That’s not always the case, of course–some people find it harder to make their voices do what they want, even though they can hear the difference just fine. Just having a hard time hitting the pitches you want isn’t tone deaf. But if you can’t hear the difference between what you’re singing and what you’re supposed to be singing, like as not you’re tone deaf.
Homer Simpson: The lesson is: Never try.
Yeah, Bren Cameron pretty much summed up my take on “tone deaf”.
Even if my friend is not tone deaf (I haven’t delved into how bad her problem is) she can’t carry a tune. It’s this tuneless humming that vaguely resembles some sort of melody for a while, then veers off and never makes sense after that. It’s miserable. I don’t know if she can be educated to sing better, (and like I said before, I’d never be the one to tell her to give up) but she does not have a “beautiful singing voice” and anyone who tells her that is (IMO) being terribly cruel.