Should I let my 10 year old go full geek?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Should I let my 10 year old go full geek without any sort of intervention? Or is the idea of interfering in a child’s harmless interests wrong? Is it my duty to guide him, protect him, prepare him for challenges of his pre-teen/teen years? Or do I let him find his own path, which may be different than my own?

I am very proud of my kid. Super smart, great personality, respectful, polite, good lookin’ guy. Teachers love him. He has a little group of good friends. No bullies.

Recently, he has gone full geeky/nerdy. He only want to wear oversized geeky t-shirts. He won’t wear anything Nike or Under-armor because he says that he is not an athlete. He wont even wear a baseball cap. He wants to go down to the comic book store and play Magic with adults 3 or 4 times a week. He spends his money on vintage video games and collectibles. He spends a fair amount of time playing online video games (apparently he is some sort of training captain of some group- he tried to explain it to me). He said that he wants to try LARPing. He is really making a commitment to this new little world of his.

Now my wife and I are what I consider high functioning geeky/nerdy people and my wife has accused me of being prejudiced against my own kind. I enjoy doing or understand the enjoyment of all the above things that my son enjoys, but it is the frequency, the intensity, and his age which is kinda worrying me. I am worried that he is totally rejecting the world of the “normals” and may only want to function in the world of the geeky/nerds. I want him to feel comfortable and confident everywhere. So, let him go down his own path and just love him, or provide guidance so that he becomes a more well rounded guy?

2

As a giant geek myself, I’d say, do your best to save him from my fate.

Sadly, I don’t actually think there’s a real cure. But try to force him to at least do some mild exercise daily or something to alleviate the symptoms.

3

Parents these days focus far too much on doing what’s good “for the kid,” but unless you want to raise an adult kid, it’s best to always do what’s good for the man*.

That can be a tricky path to navigate, because it’s not always immediately apparent what results your efforts will actually bring into effect.

We associate nerdiness or geekiness with being “less manly” but the fact is there’s nothing wrong with going 110% geek and in fact forcing your son to submit to your tastes may well establish a pattern of seeking approval through submitting to others, which is a terrible lesson for a man to learn. Plenty of arch-men are diehard WoW fans, comic book aficionados, Trekkies and Jedi-wannabees - being a man isn’t so much about what you like and more about how confident you are in what you like. Don’t undermine that.

Let him pursue what interests him, let him decide who he is, and give him the confidence that his own decisions are the best ones. Even if you disapprove of his particular tastes, make sure he feels good about whatever they are.

*I’m not a fan of gender roles, and I don’t believe they’re objectively correct. I do however acknowledge the reality of their existence, and as one who wasn’t properly socialized into my gender role, I’m also painfully aware of the consequences of failure to conform to them. I use the word Man here in specific reference to the role we assign the male gender, even though in some ideal society everyone would be free to be anyone without consequence. It’s important for you to decide, should there be any difference between the following: are you going to teach what works or what you believe is good

4

All attempts to thwart him, will only backfire spectacularly. Do him a favour and let him play it out now while he’s feeling it. Intervening will have the reverse effect, making it even more alluring and possibly even morph into a lifelong obsession, as a result.

Step back and let him fly his freak flag. NOW while he’s a kid. So it can play out for the phase it likely is, then move on to whatever comes next.

Good Luck!

5

What elbows said.

6

Moved from Great Debates to IMHO.

[/moderating]

7

The way to make him more comfortable and confident everywhere is to allow him the refuge of fitting in in the contexts that he chooses. If there’s some place he has to go or something that he has to do, then make sure that he goes there and does that. But his time is his own.

8

The only thing I would try to push is, as someone said above, some kind of regular exercise. I think that it is really crucial to develop healthy habits at his age. It doesn’t have to be a team sport, just regular walking or running would do.

9

It’s a different world than when we were kids. He can let his nerd flag fly without risking the same sort ostracization as in days of yore.

If you’re going to worry about anything (aside from general online interactions), worry about the time he’s spending with adult nerds, like LARPing or playing Magic. The old prejudices and insecurities are still out there and you don’t want him picking any of them up.

10

If you are worried about exercise, remind him that people in shape are much better LARPers than couch potatoes.

Other than that, stay the heck out of his way and let him embrace his nerddom. And I’m not just saying that because I’m sitting at the computer wearing an Optimus Prime t-shirt, either.

11

I agree with this, and will add, without getting overly into my own childhood, be sure you teach him basic adult hygiene and grooming, and insist on it.

12

The geeky stuff is cool; the interactions with adults, though, IRL and online, is something you should maybe supervise.

13

I agree that all of this is wise counsel.

Heck, people in shape are generally much better anythingers than couch potatoes. Physical pursuits don’t have to be intense or at a competitive level, but a basic level of fitness really helps with overall physiological and mental health, on a lifelong basis.

14

I agree that letting him LARP will be good for him. Exercise, social interaction and working as a team IRL.

I also suggest, if it’s possible, to see if he’s interested in band when that comes around. Band is full of geeks, gives you built-in friends with a bit of a built-in social life (when you do football games and band shows in high school) and then almost as much exercise as a sport once they get in to high school.

Not every geek is a fit for band but band is an option for every geek.

15

I dunno. The best development I had as a flourishing young geek was circumventing my parents’ interference. It’s outstanding training in a Darwinian mode.

“Let your parent-dodging be like bloodless hacking, and your hacking like bloody parent-dodging. Without any actual blood, of course.”

16

I’d be wary of a 10 year old spending too much time with adults. Wary, not against it, it just requires maintaining a good relationship with him, staying involved, and keeping an eye on those adults too. Otherwise, encourage him to do other things but let him have a good time feeling comfortable in his own skin. He’s only 10, it’s not a life long commitment.

As a survivor of parenting I’ll say that you shouldn’t worry so much about making a right or wrong decision here. Worry about keeping yourself ready to make tougher decisions and dealing with what will come a few years from now. There was no way to predict what would happen when my sons turned into teenagers, and then again when they turned into adults. Well, semi-adults that is, I’m not sure I’ve reached full adulthood myself either.

17

In addition to this, I’d make sure to talk to him about gender issues. Nerdom has its own types of toxic masculinity and you want to be having conversations that help avoid that.

In terms of adults, I’ve always had friends of all ages, and been better for it. And I agree that “geek” is not what it used to be.

18

All of it’s fine, except for the part where he’s spending a lot of time with geeky adults. There are perfectly harmless adult geeks, and some positively creepy ones. Shouldn’t the geeky adults be hanging around with other geeky adults and not kids?

When I was 14, I was hanging out with a creepy adult geek who clearly hung out with 14-year-olds because he was too socially inept to find friends his own age.

This guy was 22 and had a bunch of 14 year old kids over his house to play D&D. I was the only girl in the group, the 22-year-old was the DM. And he would lead the players through various campaigns that somehow always included a narrative where my character’s clothes would fall off due to some spell or another, some weird creature would put me under a spell where I had to comply with whatever he said, etc.- and my character would be sexually harassed repeatedly and she was definitely raped a couple of times, except “[your character] is under a spell, so she loves every minute of it.” The boys always thought this was a riot and since I was alone and only 14, I was too shy to say that I didn’t like that the games always seemed to go this way. I kept coming back because I loved D&D, and I was hoping things would improve.

So there’s one story, but I would never trust adult who spend their recreational time with children they’re not related to.

19

Lots of good advice. Like others said, let him go deep into geek, but don’t allow him to entirely ignore the rest of the world. Like folk said - fitness and hygiene are important. Also, work with him on social skills - with young people of both genders and adults. You want to encourage him to be SOMEWHAT well-rounded - don’t want him to be the kid who is frustrated because he never can get a date, and who bores every adult with his inability to discuss anything other than Star Wars minutiae.

All you need to do that is talk about different subjects at the dinner table. Take daytrips or vacations that aren’t solely geek, and require that he turn of his screens for part of them.

At 10, I think we were still requiring our kids to try park district courses. Each season they had to pick 1 thing, and stick with it thru the season. They did gymnastics, Irish dance, cartooning, various music instruments… In high school, my kids were big into band and theater. There are worse things than requiring a kid to try an instrument.

2 of my 3 kids are still pretty geeky in their late 20s. My oldest goes to cons, dresses like Link, wears various geek t-shirts, and was big into poke-go, but she is also employed as a youth librarian, married, and the mother of a beautiful 2-year old.

My middle kid is going out with a woman he met at a steampunk con, writes SF, and developed a RP game. When he was young, we used to do a ton of paintball. But he’s also an engineer (and she’s a HS English teacher), and every weekend they are not at a con, they are up in the mountains hiking or skiing.

I was always happy for opportunities to reinforce the idea that they needed to get good grades and do well in science and math - which I’m convinced helps improve job prospects. Much of geek supports that.

Just think about it as if it were any other interest. If your kid were totally into soccer, you’d still encourage him to read books, no? Also, even within his interests, expose him to different things. Introduce him to Heinlein, Tolkein, Jules Verne, Feynman, Sagan…

20

Nah. If you want him in useful activities that appeal to nerds, in a few years encourage him to enroll in Speech & Debate if your high school offers it. Ain’t no nerds like debaters. And the skills he gains will be helpful in later life, unlike band. After all, how many times has your promotion rested on your ability to march in a straight line while blowing through a curved piece of brass? :stuck_out_tongue: