To tell ds1 (7) that it is highly unlikely he will play cricket (or anything else) for England?

[lecce]

Just that really. He has recently discovered sport, mainly football, cricket and tennis, after showing no interest in the past. He was gushing on, like he does, about how he will probably play for England, how great he is, etc etc. I gently told him that only a tiny minority of people who enjoy playing a sport will reach professional level. I mentioned the extraordinary dedication, as well as natural talent, required for this to happen. I told him that of course he can try, but I think it's fair to say that I put the dampners on the idea, in fact the phrase 'pissed on his strawberries' immediately sprang to mind, though that was certainly not my intention. I am posting because he did look really crushed, and that made me doubt myself.

Context is that he attends a small school and has been on the top table since he joined in Y1. I get the impression that he is top of the class in nearly everything that is measured (from his teacher, she told me that there was one other child at a similar level, but that ds was working ahead in most areas) and that other children seem to be aware of this. Ds has a bit of a 'professor' persona going on - he loves reading, documentaries etc and I think he, ahem, enjoys sharing his knowledge at school. I have worried in the past about his social skills, but he seems fine now, has plenty of friends and his teacher describes him as 'so nice'. However, he is always telling us that others children have said stuff like 'why are you so clever?" etc and, from what he says, his 'cleverness' is frequently commented on by peers and teachers.

I don't think this is doing him much good. He seems to expect to excel at everything and, if he doesn't, gets ridiculously frustrated. He took up chess recently and skim-read the age appropriate book we got him, declared himself an expert and promptly discovered he was not. Although this resulted in a lot of upset, we saw it as a valuable lesson: He's bright but not 'the best' in everything.

So AIBU to temper his ambitions somewhat?

A bit

Let him discover at his own pace that he's not good at everything - they always do

Fuck me, you really are a bloody wet blanket. You've just successfully crushed his dreams and he's only seven. Way to go

Whats the point in telling a 7 year old what they are unlikely to do when they grow up

He might be a professional sportsman (DS 8 also thinks he's going to play rugby or tennis for England) in which case he is going to tell everyone how his mother never believed in him or he won;t be in which case he'll work it out for himself along the way.

My mother once said doubtfully "do you think you're good enough?" and I never forgot it. It didn't change whether I was good enough or not (in fact I was easily) it just made me realise that my mother really didn't think I was good enough.

Oh honestly!. He is little! I feel its cruel to crush a seven year old's dreams. He will realise that he has limitations like everyone else eventually.

Let him have his dreams and gently encourage him. Perhaps he can join a football club. It will be great for his fitness and maybe improve his social skills. Its good to try a range of sports at seven years old. Maybe he won't be a professional sportsman, but it will improve his health.

Why are you tempering them -for his benefit, or because his arrogance/enthusiasm is annoying you?

Most inventors have hundreds of failures before success. If they didn't have the passion and self belief they wouldn't keep going until they succeeded.

Let him dream. Let him aspire. Let him absorb every drop of information about his latest passion.

Just help him to be gracious with others while he's doing it.

There is no harm in dreaming at 7! He really has no idea how many people live in the country, and how many he is competing against, and after all, some DO make it! At this age my DS was trying to decide WHICH Olympic golds he was going to get, and would I be available to help him get to the airport and show him which planes went to the Olympics when he was an adult. he was also intending to win lots of Grand prixes, and had promised me a nice car bought with his winnings!

I used to really enjoy his little flights of fancy. Just walking down the road with him he would be in his own dream world, and suddenly scoring/saving goals for England, complete with crowd sound effects. Fun, and harmless. He grew out of all that as he grew into understanding the actual size of the world's population, and the comparatively small number of successful athletes. Now his ambitions are a lot more realistic, but still aiming high!

Personally I would have called it pissing on his chips

Yes. YABVU
HTH

YABU . You have no idea what he will be able to achieve if he believes in himself and works hard. I also thing you're wrong to conflate it with him being clever. It's because he's 7 not because he's top of the class. When my D's was little he was going to be a superhero in the mornings and a fireman in the afternoons . Their vision is limitless why would you want to reduce it? Life may do that to him anyway or he may be one of those lucky people who always seem blessed. (hint - I think the latter are encouraged in their dreams rather than having someone stamp over them.)

I picked my 7 year old nephew up from school last week and was very concerned as he was so quiet. I settled the other children and got him to one side to discuss what was up. He said 'its okay, I've worked it out now'. So i probed a little further. His big dilemma was having decided he was going to play on the England football and rugby teams what would he do if the matches clashed? He had spent his whole school afternoon reasoning this through and had come to the conclusion the only fair thing to do would be play Rugby till half time then football for the second half. I did have to control the giggles.

He can't keep up at football with the other kids in his class and is a bit scared of the ball but so what if todays fantasy is being king of the world.

DH is 42 and still thinks he might get a call from Man City at some point. I may have mentioned I feel its getting less likely now.

I don't think you were too harsh. From what you say your reaction was fine. It was more I'll support you but this is what its going to take than you've no hope. The wind out of his sails was no doubt more the lack of enthusiasm for committing the effort needed.

He's being seven... he'll get more realistic from experience. If he's still like this at 14, then yes, maybe.

And I still have vivid memories of my father telling me I'd never be good enough to be a singer and needed to be set my sights lower. I took his word for it, and looking back I know I gave up because of him and I could have done it. And arguably had a much more fun career.

You'll probably find that, once he's been playing sport for a bit, he'll discover where his strengths lie, and that he might not actually be the best on the team. DS is 6 and has been playing football for a year or so and he's pretty aware of his own capabilities in comparison to the other kids he plays with, in a healthy way.
He still plans to play football for England and rugby for Ireland when he's older and I just nod along and remind him of how much work etc it would take to become good enough to play for your country.
I think he's going to get enough knocks to his confidence during his life, he needs his mum to always believe that he can achieve anything.

when my ds was 7 he was utterly convinced he was going to be prime minister. hes now 12 and is equally sure he will design computer games for a living! he's only a baby why crush his ambitions?
There is, after all, a few seven year old future sports stars out there now.

I thought I was destined to be a famous actress after a part in a school play when folk said I did well. Hollywood hear I come never happened. Don't crush his dreams.

I can see both sides of this. I have a very similar sounding child, who is called 'The Professor' by his class. He's now in Yr5 and recently did REALLY badly in a test which his teacher thought he should get full marks on. Basically, when we ran through the test afterwards, he had just made a series of stupid mistakes. It was a brilliant wake up call for him ( he takes his 11+ in Sept) because up to this point he'd not failed at anything, so now he takes far more care and is getting full marks, and realises he may not just waltz into the super selective school he has his eye on!

I think that if you never explain to children that there may be things they can't do, you end up with the sort of children who the public like to laugh at on reality talent shows- they genuinely think they are brilliant because they have always been told that by their parents and seem crushed that the judges think they are just a bit average/rubbish! I think if you gently explained that he may not get to be a professional cricketer and gave him some guidance on what sort of obstacles there may be to overcome in order to reach that goal, then that's ok. If you laughed and made a disparaging/cutting remark, then that probably isn't!

Yeah, you totally pissed in his cornflakes.

He's 7. 7 year olds want to do all sorts of wonderful exciting things when they grow up. Most will end up in boring office/shop/factory jobs. So what? Let him dream. And you never know - maybe he will play for England one day, or at least county level, or local level. It's not like he thinks he's going to win X factor when he's tone deaf - even if he turns out not to be much good an interest in sports is a very positive thing. Encourage him. Your local cricket and football clubs will have junior coaching and training he can get into at this age. Why not investigate what he can do - for fun. And if he turns out to have real talent, go for it.

As for being clever, he needs encouragement to learn the difference between pride and arrogance, and not to be put off by comments from other kids.

It sounds as if you think he needs taking down a peg or two. YABU.

just love him for who he is and let him dream - he is a child not a social experiment

You're mean.

I understand why you did this - instilling good social skills is so important in little ones - but still think YABU.

Don't worry though - just use this as a lesson for future interactions on this sort of thing. He will learn and understand his limitations soon enough.

Absolutely pointless really to crush his spirit like that, it's not about being realistic at this age. All last year, my 7 year old was discussing how she was going to be a cyclist in the Olympics when she grew up, despite the fact she was really late learning to ride a bike and has terrible balance. I said nothing. She has learned to ride a bike better and now is enjoying cycling with her dad.

I wouldn't connect that in with his position in the class, that will sort itself out one way or another if and when he moves to a bigger class or school where there will be other bright children. It is difficult for clever children to learn to accept failure, my dd1 is terrible at this and has also been told by the other children she is the cleverest, but ultimately you can't control what they say- all you can do is let them find their own way through. I did have a word with her about boasting though at about age 7 (or her teacher did) as she simply didn't know you weren't supposed to tell everyone about your achievements. Now she is more tactful, but you have to do that very gently if not to crush their spirit and enthusiasm.

DS is 13 and has ambitions to play rugby for England. He is talented and has had some recognition, but who knows how far he will actually go. He is very aware how hard it would be to get there and I shall do everything in my power to support his ambitions (and be there to pick him up if things go wrong).

Let your little one dream. By all means tell him how few people actually make it, but let him know that he can aim high and work towards his goals. Who knows what may happen...

I recognise your dilemma - in fact my ds1 is very similar.

I decided that I wouldn't crush his dreams, so he is still working towards them and I am worried that I might have let him march through 14 years with his head in the clouds.

He has had similar moments to your son's chess discovery, however he has grasped the idea that he can work towards goals, and he has seen that by working harder he can get better at whatever he chooses - he has achieved far more than we might have predicted in one area particularly.

So maybe a partial apology is in order. Something along the lines of "I'm sorry that I said you wouldn't be able to play cricket for England. I know how hard it is to do something like that and I didn't want you to be disappointed. However, if you want to play cricket for England, we will help you to join a club and take you to training. It's going to be a lot of hard work but you go for it."

Then you get to go and watch him play if he does succeed - and make sure you have a big box of tissues handy, if he doesn't!!

Oh yeah YANBU. Teach him to aim for mediocrity definitely.

Aww, he sounds cute.

I would and do just go on about hard work. It's talent And hardwork, and luck, but mostly hard work, etc, etc.

I tell mine they will play for England one day if they work hard!