Husband told 9 year he was not clever

[husbandbloodyhusband]

Not Daily Mail fodder - fuck you!
Namechanged
My husband has just told my 9 year old DS that he's not clever enough to be a doctor. My son was visibly upset and went upstairs in tears (which husband says was because of my reaction to the comment).
We are now not talking because I think that my husband is 100% in the wrong to have said this and should apologise.
Husband won't apologise because he thinks that we should be honest with the children and said that he is entitled to his opinion. I am at a loss at how he can be so hurtful.
For info, son has dyslexia but is 'expected' or 'developing' in all areas of the curriculum.

Ah, it will (annoyingly) probably spur him on to greatness and then your dh will be sooo smug. But yeah, not cool and not accurate.

What a twat. He's wrong, as well.

I tell my DC they will have to work very hard if they want to be a Dr because you know, it's our job to encourage them not shit on their dreams.

I used to say this privately about dd. Bit of a dreamer, never finished homework. She developed anxiety and depression includi g self harm and anorexia. At 17 she was diagnosed with ADHD/ADD and started medication for it. We have back not only our happy girl but a happy girl who is going to Cambridge and who dropped 5 ums point across 3 A Levels and got a distinction at grade 8 for voice. Not only that but her very prestigious college offered her a scholarship, no, not a bursary.

My dyslexic brother is now doing something so complex with computing that I can't understand what it is.

My friend is severely dyslexic and studied geology then got amazing job in oil and gas company making a very nice income.

I was a pretty much straight A student but told by my mother that I shouldn't do any career I came up with. Including medicine, which I really wanted to do. Academically I was capable, but I didn't apply because I had no confidence in my abilities because if her. Never quite gotten over that (although retraining now to do another profession she told me I couldn't and I'm getting great marks!).

Your son is probably the class clown to avoid his peers noticing that he might not be understanding something it's quite a classic behaviour.

If it was me I would explain to your DH that although an off the cuff remark it does have potential to damage your son which you know wasn't his intention but is a serious possibility. If he still doesn't listen then show him this.

As for your son have a separate convo with him of that he can do anything he puts his mind to but it involves hard work and doing his hw not messing about in class. It may also be worth looking into extra hw clubs/support to teach him coping mechanisms/different ways of learning.

Oh dear. That is so mean!! Kids love to dream about future careers and they have every right to. It's not about his opinion that concerns me, it's the fact he is demotivating a child to dream and have goals, or a purpose in life.
My DC change their future careers all the time. One month it's a pilot, next a fireman and next "I want to work in McDonald's when I'm older because I love the happy meals".
I just say wow that would be super cool or super amazing.
If they said they want to be a princess/prince or a horse! Yep had that one too. that's where I would say that's not really a job/career.
He is wrong and hurtful in his attitude rather then expectations, and even then he could never predict the outcome.

And OP perhaps you need a talk with your DS about how his father got it wrong, YOU know he's very clever and can do anything he sets his mind to. It's not your job to fix your DH's mistakes, he should do that, but failing that, you can maybe do something to take the sting out. Having just one person who shows they believe in us is a powerful thing.

My goodness he's far too young to know what he will be-or to be discouraged.

Dyslexia shouldn't be a bar if he can get there academically.

Yes show him the thread and tell him to tell your son he was wrong.

At 9 years old you cannot possibly know. Boys are often quite wild at that age.

If your son is naughty and a bit challenging what better way to get him to focus than encourage his ambition?

And if when it comes to it it's not for him there are plenty of other options - nurse, paramedic, physio, chiropractor etc.

My niece told me she wanted to be a doctor and I've taken a very different line with her.

He has now come back and apologised. I'm not sure that DS believes DH that he believes in him but I'm glad that he has apologised and is now showing himself to have regretted his choice of words.
DS then said he wasn't sure about being a doctor, maybe a paramedic!

Given the grades needed for medicine, there might be an argument that if he’s expected or exceeding in all areas rather than exceeding, combined with the whole class clown thing, that he might not be clever enough to be a Dr.

There are ways to say it nicely, but realistically lots of people who might like to be a dr are not bright enough to get into university to study it.

That’s so mean! For what it’s worth, my cousin is a doctor and he’s one of the thickest people I know

My husband is a doctor and he didn’t even finish school the first time round.

*expected or developing

That is absolutely horrible of your DH. That sort of throwaway comment, forgotten about within seconds by the adult, fixes the child's belief about what they can do for the rest of their life. And in any case, most of achievement is down to effort and practice.

I have taught a number of dyslexic students. I have dyslexic colleagues. Two of the brightest people I know (philosophy professor, professor of particle physics) have dyslexia. Your DH is talking out of his arse. And being cruel and unkind to boot.

He's perfectly entitled to his opinion, but not to dish it out to other people.

My mother told me I was tone deaf - I believed her, and went through the rest of my schooling wondering why I had an itch to play an instrument and why so many teachers expressed bafflement that I wasn't musical.

Now I'm trying to make up for lost time, but I'll never get back what I missed out on. No, I never would have been good enough to do professional music, but I would have loved to sing in a choir, or play the piano. Your DH has no right to spoil your son's dreams, especially at an age where they're still achievable. If this conversation needs to be had at all, it has to be had with his teachers. When he's 18.

He needs to tell him that he's not dumb but that if he wants to be a doctor he has to work harder and try more because the way it stands right now he's missing the mark to be able go on to be a doctor.

You don't have to be hugely intelligent to become a doctor - it's often sufficient to be dedicated and hard working. A lot of children never fulfil their potential because of low parental expectations.

You know which children succeed?

The clever ones? - No.

The ones who succeed are the hard-working, determined ones.

Yes - they need a level of capability, but average intelligence and a determined attitude will do a lot better than genius level sitting on its arse. I was a clinical educator at a very distinguished university, and there were many students with dyslexia. One in particular stands out - she gained a DOUBLE FIRST and was one of the most capable and able young women I have ever encountered.

Your son has every chance of succeeding.

Your husband is a wanker.

You shouldn’t insult a child’s intelligence. Plus there’s a difference between being academic and being intillegent. If you throw enough extra or quality tuition at a child ‘most’ children even those that aren’t the brightest can excel.

I have to say though I agree with his thoughts with regards to things that are harder to change. There’s no point having dreams of being a premiership football player if you haven’t made it by your teens. Nor would you encourage your short and not overly attractive daughter to follow her dreams of being a catwalk model 😄 Some things you can’t change!

I think the dyslexia thing is a bit of a red herring. Dyslexia aside, you will know OP if he is intelligent enough or not. Not everyone has the level of intelligence required.

That said, it’s probably a bit early in his life to discourage him as most children change their minds when they hit the real world.

There is a study with fleas (bear with me) that shows the fleas only jump as high as they were allowed to i.e. there was a lid on their pot and even when the lid was taken away they only ever jumped as high the lid had originally been.

Some educationalists believe this is also true of children; they will go as high as they are told they can. Look up Growth Mindset, it's very popular at the moment (ironically as our education system is obsessed by putting children in boxes, but that's another thread altogether.)

You do need to work bloody hard and believe it can be done.

Dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence. Plenty of high achievers are dyslexic. Your son just needs the support in place, the strategies to help overcome any weaknesses and the will to succeed. One of my dyslexic tutees wants to be a doctor and she has the determination to hopefully make it happen.

My husband was initially refused admission to primary school in the Nordic country of his birth as his abilities were deemed not up to standard (not good at drawing and colouring in). But it bore no relation to his actual academic ability and he has been a doctor for many years.

Medical school is an interesting one anyway. There's a question mark over how "clever" (in the sense of having to handle incredibly complex conceptual reasoning) you have to be. I know quite a few medics who would say that what's at issue with a medical degree is the sheer amount of information you have to assimilate, not the complexity of it. And in fact some medical schools (my local one, for instance) have gone down a route of no longer insisting on 4 A*s at A level.

They've set an entrance standard which they belief to be proportionate to the difficulty of the course, then they interview every applicant forecast to get that standard. The interview panel doesn't have the candidate's academic record in front of them - their job is to assess people skills like willingness to learn, potential bedside manner, etc. Then the course itself is very much project based learning rather than regurgitating facts. What they're stepping away from is "lazy applications procedures" where you simply use the 4 A*s to cut down the number of applicants to a reasonably sized pool, without any regard for who would actually make the best doctors.

To make a good doctor, you have to be reasonably intelligent, but arguably having high emotional intelligence is as important.

(And absolutely agree with PP that praising effort is much more important than praising intelligence - the latter leaves children with a fatalistic attitude of "either I am naturally good enough to do it or I'm not", and even if they are naturally able, gives them no resources the first time they come across a tricky problem which requires hard work.)