To think we arent being real with our children?

[Just01]

We are constantly teach them to believe they can be what they want,have what they want,live the life they want,all it takes is work and a positive attitude!its bullshit.life is full of failure and disappointment,dissatisfaction and probably 90%of people just struggle and get by each day.if we keep telling kids oh just try hard yoi can achieve anything we are setting them up to fail,sometimes they cant get what they want no matter how hard they try or what they do.we need to be more real with our kids and tell them it's ok,that they can try and get the lives they want but it may not happen and the emphasis in life should be about being good and happy.

[AldiAisleofCrap]

We are constantly teach them to believe they can be what they want,have what they want,live the life they want,all it takes is work and a positive attitude
Why are you teaching your dc that then that’s not how I have raised my dc. Nothing irritates me more than the ridiculous “follow your dreams” slogans.
I encourage my children to work hard so hopefully they can have career than they enjoy and pays enough for a decent standard of living. They are under no illusions that it might not happen. They understand how fragile the economy can be, the understand that people end up with health conditions that affect their earning potential etc.
I do not teach my dc that being happy is the most important thing in life and the ultimate aim.
If that’s their focus, life will let them down.

[totallyinapproppriate]

My son's school is worse than that. They taught him that ' If you can dream it, you can do it', which has to be some of the worst advice ever.

[Prettybluepigeons]

I have taught my children that hard work and qualifications give you choices, That they should grasp every opportunity that comes their way, that they should travel as much as they possibly can and have as many adventures as they possibly can.
One of my kids wants to be an actor. Will he end up a member of the RSC or in Hollywood films? Probably not but by god, he's having fun working towards his goal; attending workshops, being in plays, going to voice coaching etc
All those experiences will be beneficial to him no matter what he ends up doing , it will give him confidence and self worth and happiness.

[totallyinapproppriate]

|I do not teach my dc that being happy is the most important thing in life and the ultimate aim

Interesting. I remember hearing a conversation between too older women and one of them was going on about how children are taught now that their goal is to be happy, and that she was glad she was brought up free from the burden of needing to be happy. She said this left her free to fail and failure is interesting, and she prefers an interesting life.

I kinda agree that 'you must be happy' is a burden. Anyway, its a wrong focussd goal as happiness is a by product of other stuff, it shouldn't be a goal in itself.

[Pelleas]

Ylvamoon That's such a shame. It sounds as though she's learning that, unfortunately, abstract intelligence doesn't count for much in the average workplace.

I imagine it's different in academia/research but in the corporate or public sector, it only really counts to be good at something. You can carve out a niche if you apply your intelligence to becoming the known expert in Excel, or accounting, or x computer system, but generally what companies want is people who'll make their senior staff look good. They want people who'll jump up and down shouting 'yay' when some daft new innovation is announced, not people who'll suggest improvements or point out the flaws in it.

On the bright side, 20 is still very young - I hope your family member finds her path in life soon.

[notheragain4]

@user1623421345

I'm not ignorant, I've written a short paragraph to try and summarise my feelings without boring people. I put in brackets to an extent to acknowledge it's not as simplistic as having complete control, but ultimately, in a lot of cases we do have some control over our lives and how we react to things. I'm not saying it means we all get dealt the same hand, but it's how we deal with our circumstances that differentiates people from each other. I think it's important to empower children and people to know they have some control, otherwise, like another pp has said people resign to feeling like passengers in their own lives and don't make changes for their own good. Im not going to spout out my life story to you, I don't owe you anything, but I do speak from some experience.

I think we do our children a disservice to not teach them that they need to take some ownership of their lives, we risk them growing up passively and lacking resilience. I sure as hell am not raising my kids like that, but I don't have a chip on my shoulder.

[totallyinapproppriate]

two, not too

[corythatwas]

If you work hard, you get good grades

Not necessarily. Every teacher knows a student who works hard and diligently but who doesn't get the good grades because they are simply not that bright.

On the other hand, we are currently seeing the terrible consequences of letting children get the idea that since they are so bright they're going to get the rewards anyway, there is no value in working hard for its own sake.

What I do think we need to do is to promote hard work as a value in its own right. Not because you are guaranteed high rewards or because any society could run for long giving every one of its hard workers high rewards, but because a job well done is a good think in itself. May seem a little old-fashioned but the advantage is that that reward doesn't depend on others.

[MeadowHay]

I agree OP, my daughter is only a toddler but I was thinking about this the other day. My parents used to say to me like study hard at school so you get a good job and earn good money. I dutifully did so, ended up with a first class degree in law with a modern foreign language. That was 2017 and until a year ago I was earning minimum wage, I have had rejection after rejection for training contracts and even paralegal jobs that would have paid slightly better. I was meant to go to Oxbridge but I missed my A-Level offer by a very tiny margin and despite evidence of mitigating circumstances for illness that meant I missed a THIRD of my A2 schooling and still came out with AAB, they would take me. The likelihood is that unconscious bias has also worked against me as someone who is BAME and I'm absolutely sure I was rejected from a promotion at work once due to pregnancy. The society that we live in is full of discrimination and if you're in a minority group like me and my DD are it's even more acute. So I'm not sure what I'm going to tell her when she is older. I can't do what my parents did and say work hard, get good grades, and you'll get a good job with good money as that implies I didn't follow that advice as I have a crap job with shit pay. But then surely they will look at me and think what's the point in working hard at school if it just leads you to where mum is, working in the same job as some apprentices who don't even have degrees. I think I will really try to push my kids into vocational areas or areas with skill shortages and be realistic about job opportunities with them rather than a you can be whatever you want to be type thing. In fairness my DF did try to push me into medicine/pharmacy/healthcare and I didn't want to do that and now look where I am. Out of the three of us only one sibling is doing well for themselves and that's the one that listened to my DF and did go into healthcare even though he didn't want to at the time (he likes it now).

[orangesandapplesandpearsohmy]

Sorry that you feel that way, but I can’t think of anything worse than taking hope, ambitions and dreams away from kids.
There’s a happy medium there - make sure your kids are educated, resilient and realise that some things take hard work and patience.

[Pelleas]

children are taught now that their goal is to be happy, and that she was glad she was brought up free from the burden of needing to be happy

Possibly the issue is the modern definition of 'happy'. I've often seen threads on here where parents are complaining that their children aren't learning well because the teacher isn't making the subject interesting or engaging enough. This is symptomatic of a wider reluctance to accept that sometimes life is boring.

Any subject at school that doesn't form part of your natural interests is probably going to be boring - if you hate sport, there's nothing more boring than hanging round on the netball pitch, if you hate languages there's nothing more boring than listening to someone droning on about cases. If subjects are effectively dumbed down to make them 'engaging' for the masses, children are being set up for disappointment later in life. Unless they have the right combination of luck and talent to find a job they love for its own sake, they are going to spent significant parts of their adult life being bored. But there is nothing wrong with that - it enables you to appreciate the smaller pleasures of your free time, hobbies, family life.

However, bringing people up to believe that 'happiness' is equivalent to a constant fairground of entertainment, thrills and riotous pleasure is a very dangerous thing to do. At best it will lead to disappointment, dissatisfaction and restlessness - at worst it will lead to artificial thrill-seeking - drugs, reckless behaviour, violence.

[ginghamtablecloths]

I sort of agree with you Just01 as unrealistic expectations are bound to lead to people feeling that they are failures if they're not in the top 10% of achievers. Most of us are not going to set the world on fire and that's just fine. Many of us lead very ordinary and mundane lives but we tick along just fine. We do our best and try to enjoy or cope with whatever life throws at us. It doesn't mean that we are failures.

[Gwenhwyfar]

@Femaleassassin

And yet some people do have rich and fulfilling careers and great lives, so it can happen and its what i hope for my kids

Yes, but it doesn't mean it happens because they worked hard or that everyone who works hard will be successful. There are other factors.

[Purplephonecover]

There’s nothing wrong with ambition, mix it with a good work ethic, positive attitude and intelligence then your children will go a long way in life.

I still this rather than striving for perfection. Effort and attitude

[Dilatory]

How many young boys are desperate to be professional footballers and neglect their schoolwork for training? A tiny fraction have the luck and talent to make it.

If they have enough talent to get into a club academy these days, they get an excellent education alongside their training, because the clubs know perfectly well that only a small minority of academy kids will play professional football, and are upfront about this from day one.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"No adult ever looks back and thinks, ‘I wish I hadn’t bothered trying at school.’ "

Are you sure? I think some people do regret turning down social opportunities in favour of study when it didn't pay off in adulthood.

[Pelleas]

@Gwenhwyfar

"No adult ever looks back and thinks, ‘I wish I hadn’t bothered trying at school.’ "

Are you sure? I think some people do regret turning down social opportunities in favour of study when it didn't pay off in adulthood.

I agree with this. I wish I'd 'lived' a bit more when I was younger as I don't think my academic achievements have gained me very much.

[ZezetteEpouseX]

They can either be taught to accept defeat every time they face an obstacle, and blame others/the government/the "rich" whilst sitting on their arse all day

or can be taught that there's no real "luck" in the world and they can't see the efforts and the background of others they admire. Yes, they probably won't become King of England or a world famous football player, but everything else is pretty much up for grab, IF you work for it and IF you make the sacrifices that are needed.

Succeeding basically means getting back up and push through every time you fail and fall along the way...

Settling at any age, and accepting mediocre conditions that make you unhappy is a waste of a life. There's a really big world around here, and many ways to reach the same goal. At some point you need to decide what is more important to you, but it's all down to attitude.

"I want to be xxx" but do nothing about it and expect it to fall on your lap somehow when you reach 14, 18 or 25 is stupid. "I want to be xxx" and working for it is how you get it.

No one has ever become an astronaut because NASA recruited them in a school fair. No one has ever become a prime ballerina by doing a couple of hours of dance a week.

[Davodia]

No adult ever looks back and thinks, ‘I wish I hadn’t bothered trying at school
I do. It was a waste of time and didn’t get me any further forward. And I’m sure my neighbour does, given that he invested about ten years to get qualified to PhD level and nobody will hire him due to his autism.

[Dilatory]

it doesn't mean it happens because they worked hard or that everyone who works hard will be successful. There are other factors

But in most scenarios, not working hard will definitely rule you out entirely.

Every time an 'ideal career' thread comes up on Mn, multiple people say that they would love to be a writer, specifically a novelist. Yet most of those people have never finished a single novel.

There is absolutely nothing stopping anyone writing. It requires no training or expensive equipment, and you can write on your phone at a bus stop or on your lunchbreak, or by spending less time watching TV or on SM. You could do it, slowly, in 15 minutes a day. I wrote my first novel on maternity leave with PND while doing an international move with a newborn. It never sold. So I wrote another one, while working FT with a toddler.

Most UK writers do not earn enough to live on by their writing alone, and of course there are trends and fashions you can be lucky or unlucky with, but if you don't actually put in the work to write, finish and revise to make something as good as it can be, you don't even get to the starting point.

The difference between me and the people who say 'Oh, I'd love to be a writer' isn't talent. Mostly it's because I put in the work and they didn't.

[ZezetteEpouseX]

I wish I'd 'lived' a bit more when I was younger as I don't think my academic achievements have gained me very much.

to be fair, most of the very academically successful people I have met also had a very wide and interesting range of side activities, hobbies and passion that set them apart.
JUST being academic is usually not enough. That's the point. Work hard but work intelligently.

[TheletterZ]

I am a teacher and see students who definitely try and work hard but still struggle with the subject. I focus on getting better and building skills so they can ‘pass’ the subject, which as it is a core subject keeps more doors open.

Most of these students are realistic but occasionally you get some (and/or their parents) that aren’t. If someone is working hard and still struggling to get a grade 4 in GCSE science then it is not realistic they will become a vet, looking at other work with animals is a better fit. There are some that fully believe the ‘I can be anything I want to do’ message and I worry how they will cope when they can’t.

I also work with the school’s oxbridge applicants, every year we have to have difficult conversations. Not everyone can achieve these top grades, not matter how much work they put in.

[Thisismytimetoshine]

Are you sure? I think some people do regret turning down social opportunities in favour of study when it didn't pay off in adulthood.
Can you give me an example of social opportunities that would actually impact on your education?

[thepeopleversuswork]

Somebody identified something earlier which I think does have an element of truth: that kids who are academically "special" do end up feeling quite let down by life.

I wasn't "gifted" but I came from a background where academic achievement was praised above almost anything else -- certainly above emotional contentment and good family relationships. And I was led to believe that achieving good academic performance would essentially set me up for life. Imagine my surprise when despite a good degree etc it still took me years to get to the point where I was even financially self-sufficient, let alone successful.

Academic achievement is a good start and is essential for certain careers but its by no means enough in itself and if over-prioritised it can lead to a sense of disappointment when other areas of your life have not been invested in.

I don't think its good to tell kids they will never be able to achieve anything: I think nurturing aspiration is really important. But I do agree that teaching kids that academic success in itself is a fast-track to broader career success and happiness is a fool's errand. Success and happiness are very broad and they need to fit the individual and their aspirations. And practical savvy, presentation and social skills are at least as important as academic brilliance.

It's about a responsive and well-rounded approach which encourages aspiration but takes the child's capabilities and wishes into account. Much harder than it sounds.