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?

I love it that when England do badly in Football or cricket there is at least ONE man in every household who thinks they REALLY COULD lead them to victory,

I find this really interesting. I love the concept of mindset being the decider between failure and success. Have a read about Michael Jordan. I wonder what his parents said to him?

I still think I would make a fantastic backing singer for a really big rock band...

Isn't there a danger, Troy, that if there is no notion that failure is a possibility, then in the event of not making it to the top, the comedown will be all the more painful and difficult to deal with?

I have a friend whose teen ds1 has been with a premiership football team, on the verge of being offered a pro contract which, in he event, hasn't happened.

To her credit, while obviously supporting him, she has instilled in him the importance of having a 'Plan B', and although he is still going to pursue a career in football, he has always taken on board that it might not happen, even though he has reached a pretty high level.

I think a lot of responses have been rather harsh to the OP. When my son at about 7 or 8 used to say he really wanted to be a premiership footballer we used to say that it was very difficult and involved lots of hard work, but if he wanted to go for it, we would book him into soccer clubs at the weekend and take him to the park to practice. Of course now at 15 he knows he never had a chance (honestly, he didn't!) but he has worked hard and worked up to be a B team goalie at his school, which is a big achievement for him and which I respect him for. When he says now he wants to be an actor, we make it clear that that's also a difficult career but that if he wants to go for it, he must - but it involves hard work, prioritising drama activities over other activities and disappointment.

I find this really interesting. Partly because my ds1 sounds very similar to yours op. Some things come easily to him and I know his friends can find him big headed (I've heard them talking). He also really struggles to try at anything that he doesn't get immediately. He also seems to struggle to read social situations and so I think it might take home a really long time to learn that his peers won't like it if he is a know all.
And yet he is easily crushed! So I try not to crush his confidence but then hate it when I see his little face when his friends don't like his conversation. I also have a brother who was always told he was brilliant and has reeeally struggled with adult life when his dreams failed. And a sister who has had zero confidence and it has reeeally held her back. So when faced with my ds1 I am really uncertain how to deal with it. So this has been really interesting to read.

I have been thinking about this thread.

Recent research in psychology has show that always telling children how great they are, rather than being realistic, can actually be damaging. It can mean they don't learn to deal with failure, and/or don't learn how to work for something that doesn't come easily.

I think there is a big difference between telling someone they have would have to work for something and crushing their dreams.

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/smores-and-more/201112/the-gift-failure

There's something about the opening post which makes it sound as though your son has lots of traits you don't like. I wonder if there's a chance that he realises? Genuine question, as you have obviously been very reflective on this thread

badtime - I agree that you shouldn't tell children that they're great at everything when they're obviously not but you really can't tell what a 7 year old might be good at when they're 13 or 17.

When DS asks me if he's good at singing I tell him that it isn't what he's best at but that I love to hear him singing around the house. He knows I will tell him the truth. But 7 year olds don;t always want to know the turth, they want to dream big dreams of saving people from burning houses and playing football for England.

I tell DS that if he wants to be a professional sportsman that he will need to put in thousands of hours of practice if he wants to be better than all the other good tennis/rugby/footballing 8 year olds out there.

Or sometimes I will say "I don't see why not if you work at it" or sometimes I just say "Isn't that a lovely idea".

I think saying you have to be "realistic" with a child in order to protect them from future upset is a) a very british thing to do b) pointless as most 7 year old have worked out by the time they're 13/14 whether they're even likely to get onto the school team let along become a professional.

If you think they have a reputation for bing boastful (even unintentionally) then much better to have several conversations about being modest and not hurting other peoples feelings.