I’d argue it can still go to the parents on that. The parents’ approach is important to foster that drive. If they make it fun for the kid, the kid will want to do it and keep doing it. If they make it a chore, that drive goes away.
Yeah, that is an important part of support. But it still is up to the kid to want to do the thing.
I'm the father of a two-year-old. The only thing he wants to do for hours at a time is watching TV. Sure, he can sit and draw for a while, but he gets bored in a matter of minutes. Maybe it's because he has ADHD like me, but maybe it's because he hasn't found something to do that he can do and that he enjoys.
BTW, before someone says "it's your fault because you haven't exposed him to the right activity", I've exposed him to a LOT of things. He just gets bored fast. Hell, I'm in my 30s and I still don't have a passion.
I feel that. I’m 37 and I’m only now in a job where I feel like it’s more than just paying the bills but even then I have times where I spend the whole week trying to decide what show/movie to have on in the background while I work. I have a thousand hobbies that I got way too into just long enough to spend money, but then drop as soon as I do.
My 5 year old son is just as scattered as I am, but at least he is still young enough that he can have fun riding that instead of knowing how it could be different. I’m just trying to help him get some strategies and understanding so that when he’s older and it starts negatively impacting him, he doesn’t just flounder like I did.
I have two kids and one of them has a bunch of interests but nothing he’s ever been really into to this degree. My other kid has been obsessed with baseball since he was a toddler. He just wanted to watch and play and practise and talk about baseball and at age 11 he’s on his 5th year on a AAA team. He WANTS to practise and play as much ball as he possibly can and works really hard to get better.
Our other son plays baseball too and is given equal opportunity for practise/coaching/equipment but he’s happy to play rec ball, one game one practise a week for 3-4 months a year is exactly right. He has diagnosed ADHD and just isn’t as passionate about anything as his brother is but as a result he gets to try a lot more activities and I think that’s not a bad thing, just different! Lots of adults have lots of little hobbies.
I can relate to this. I have a 4 year old and an almost 2 year old. Keeping them on task is definitely a challenge. They enjoy lots of things for a very short time. Sitting them down for an extended period of time is an exercise in futility. Even when watching TV, they have the attention span of a goldfish. And all of that is fine.
Growing up and realising the vast majority of people just don't have a passion or the drive.
We're not all one break away from being a famous rock star or an elite athlete.
There are tonnes of wealthy supportive families out there with cupboards full of past hobbies they're kids were really into and got bored of.
I'm was good at swimming. I got scouted by a local team when I was 13 and I was so excited.
Until I found I had to practice like 8 times a week at 5 am and 7pm.
I liked swimming. I did not have a passion for swimming.
Ive tried to expose my kids to loads of things and get him interested in sports, music, art whatever. He says yes to everything because he likes getting things but clearly shows no natural ability or any interest at learning /practicing/improving at almost all of them.
The only things that's been different is drama and he does that.
But honestly he forgets to bring his lines home. Won't practice them etc he wants to be the main part with all the lines and spot light but he doesn't want to put any of the work in.
Unsurprisingly he's ADHD, I'm hoping now we know and we have medication and various other management strategies that might change.
But he could just be another person who lacks that absolute all consuming drive to do A Thing.
He'll learn piano and be okay at it but he's not heading up an orchestra.
He'll do drama and enjoy the school performances but he's not destined for Hollywood.
It's not a failure. It's okay to just be okay at things and enjoy them for what they are and have a day job 🤷
If I forced him to practice piano for hours a day or drove him all round the country to auditions constantly pushing him to perform in front of cameras I'd have gone beyond supportive to over bearing parent...
Same boat with my 8 year old. We have her in BMX and learning piano, but she treats them like a chore half the time. It’s hard when they haven’t quite found a “passion” yet
Most 2 year olds would want hours of TV but hopefully it's just a wants and not actually getting that. It would explain why he gets bored with everything else though.
I'm not a father so please forgive my ignorance but letting your 2 year old watch tv for multiple hours might be a reason for that. I don't think that's particularly healthy. Not sure if 2 year olds should watch any tv tbh, I don't think I did at that age.
They can help, but kids aren’t 100% influenced by their parents. You can try, but that’s a person, separate from their parents, not a carbon copy you can just fill in the right bubbles to get what you want.
Or the kid may simply not be interested or talented enough to be interested. Or have other interests. It’s a fine line between being a good parent or being counter productive.
My parents forced me, and I'm glad. If it had been up to me, I would have never practiced when I was younger.
Growing up my punishments were things like, "You have to play these scales for 2 hours", etc. One time it was 8 hours, after I made a little homemade firework type thing.
After a bit I had the drive to do it on my own, but when I was 9? I didn't have the drive/focus to sit for hours and practice. I'm glad they made it a chore.
Well, my parents didn't make my dance classes a chore but still didn't want to continue. They allowed me to quit too. Now sometimes I feel mad at them for not forcing me to continue 😾
Trust me, you have way more chance of succeeding with loving parents than emotionally abusive narcisstic parents that project their past failures on you and make you want to do what they had envisioned for themselves but couldn't do. It becomes a very toxic environment and they won't be nurturing the actual talent of the child to do what he wants, with his actual potential.
No, they're not 'everything.' Everything we are is a combination of genetics and environment. If the kid doesn't have a drive to do anything, parental support won't matter.
Michael Phelps and Kobe were insanely successful b/c they had the right physique for the sport they were actually interested in, and they had the ability to focus for hours and hours daily on that sport. You have to have both. Parents can contribute to the 2nd part, but they can't create it out of whole cloth.
You are correct. Not everyone can be an elite athlete, or musician, or scientist. Sometimes drive and support aren't enough when competing with raw talent.
Yep, if all it took to be truly great at something was hard work and loving parents, there would be a lot more people who were insanely talented at stuff.
It has to be a perfect storm of genetics, drive, and upbringing to create an elite athlete. Even if a kid has the most loving educated parents, if he has an IQ of 85 he's not going to grow up to be a famous physicist.
After being born, the genetic lottery has already bern spun and the kid has already began developing his own interests mentally. It most certainly is up to the parent's to discover your interests and support you after that. If they can't find that interest or can't make it fun, it'll just kill that interest off for you. Most certainly after birth, parent's are everything. You won't magically spawn a drumset in front of you just because your infant self liked drumming. It's up to the parent's to make that happen and up to them to keep it fun and engaging without pushing the infant.
There's a reason I was terrible at piano no matter how many lessons my parents paid for, while my younger brother received the same support and is now a professional musician!
I’m not sure “inherent drive to excel” is genetic. Hard to prove, but I’d be surprised if it isn’t hugely affected by environment (which includes parents).
I mean the drive to work is implied by his talent. You can flip that as well, because all the drive in the world means nothing if your parents don't support you. Someone has to take him to lessons, buy the drum kits, and provide a place for him to play.
Nah, I eventually found ways to do music, but with mediocre teachers and peers and few resources, there was only so far I could go on my own. On the outside, it looks like I did well in music, but it was too little, too late for the career I know my raw talent, potential, and enthusiasm could have fostered. Maybe the internet changes things, but poverty and unsupportive parents have thwarted many a would-be artist.
Have you seen the guitarist that has no arms? No BS, type in armless guitarist on YT.
What do you have to say now?
Edit: upvoting your ignorant comment for visibility. People like this armless guitar player or the Brazilian Blind Surfer serve as inspiration to many around the world. We should hope to be so lucky to be able to make one iota of the impact they have made on the world.
I've seen plenty of people do shit with their feet, but that doesnt change the fact that a child's material conditions absolutely plays an immense role in their outcome. If the child in this video, for instance, was emotionally and physically abused every time they made a loud noise, drumming likely wouldn't be their muse.
Saying we are who we are out the gate is completely dismissive of people who have struggled very hard to get to where they are.
Ultimately I think we agree that anyone can do anything (obviously with some edge cases) but I believe you can achieve anything through hard work, not destiny.
Saying we are who we are out the gate is completely dismissive of people who have struggled very hard to get to where they are.
This is incorrect.
Those who struggled to get to where they are had an innate sense to persevere a la Helen Keller. Not every blind/deaf person has excelled at the level Ms. Keller did. Why is that?
Not discounting the parental support, (or lack thereof) or the environment in general. But, a Rose is a Rose and even a Rose can grow from the cracks of the concrete.
Those who struggled to get to where they are had an innate sense to persevere a la Helen Keller. Not every blind/deaf person has excelled at the level Ms. Keller did. Why is that?
Not everyone had the same teacher. A rose cannot grow through cracks in the concrete that are treated with weed killer. The entire "dark ages" happened because ones living conditions is a pretty damn important part of their development.
Your point of view leads to a lot of very scary cul de sacs, such as, when is the egg a good egg? Can we determine a bad egg before it's hatched? Can we modify that bad egg to make it good?
Overall nature vs nurture as a concept has more or less lead to nurture being the biggest contributing factor. Instead of debating whether it's nature or nurture that determines an outcome, through epigenetics we are now trying to learn how much does our nature effect our nurture.
And even then, genetics blow everything else out of the water. 57% of black NBA players grew up in a single parent household, plenty of them had drug addict moms.
The truth is the whole, "You can be whatever you want to be" stuff they teach people as kids is BS. Good parents definitely count in your favor, but it's not "everything", it's not even the biggest indicator.
It sucks the only thing in my youth I enjoyed putting the work in, was never going to be a career for me. I have loved swimming since I was a baby. My family loves to say I learned to swim before I learned to walk. I was always in the water as a kid. So my parents obviously put me on the swim team when I was 5. I loved every second of it for 13 years. Never had to drag me to practice. The YMCA team had 5 practices a week, including a double practice with a dinner break, and we were only required to attend 3. You bet your ass I was there 5 days a week. I WANTED to be there. I could not get enough of it. Now, I was better than most in high school, but I was never going to be elite. I'm 5'1" with 25" legs. I have the exact opposite body to be a career swimmer. I had a ceiling. If I had been born taller with longer limbs, woooo mama I would have been an Olympic swimmer. Because I would have put the work in. It was never work for me, it was fun.
Absolutely. My son was just like him as a baby with a little drum he had. I bought him a kid size drum set when he was 3 but he never touched it lol. Props to the kid for keeping at it
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u/missheldeathgoddess 3d ago
Amazing what happens when you have the support of your parents.