How do I get one of THOSE children

[Elmoandbert]

What is it that makes a child motivated, busy, sparky, confident...you know, those children that private schools seem to produce. Is it the school or the parenting? Both?

My son is 8 and is lovely most of the time but just comes across as being lazy, bored, unconfident, addicted to screens, like a teenager in many ways,the complete opposite of this.

He takes part in a few extracurricular activities but just says how much he hates them. I am at my wits end and feeling like a failure.

Boys mature later than girls though. My little brother was utterly unmotivated and actually badly behaved at primary school so much so that my parents decided to pay for private school (in Germany where this was very uncommon at the time) because they were so worried he wouldn't "cut it" in a normal state school. Two decades later and he has a Masters from Cambridge and doing a Doctorate at Harvard. No one would have ever in a million years been able to predict this when he was in primary

I have the same worries op! Mine (8 and 10)generally hate everything I try to encourage them to do (sport/music/school work etc) XelaM maybe your brother changed because of the private school though?! I can't afford to do that for my 2!!

I don't think it's necessarily the school or the parenting tbh. Certainly not in isolation.

My dd is one of those kids... seems to have it all. I genuinely think it's just a large dollop of luck. Good parenting and decent schools (state or private) probably help, but so much is down to a child's own innate temperament and personality. I don't think I realised this as much before, but I'm convinced of it now.

Ooh, your boy sounds like my 9yo girl! My nieces, OTOH, are the bright, sparky, confident-but-not-precocious types. They're not at private school, I can only assume SIL and BIL are better at parenting than DH and I are.

I offered to swap last time I saw them. SIL thought I was joking...

I wonder about this too OP. I’m not sure private school is the answer (I went to one which was really academic and did almost nothing to encourage extracurricular activities) but maybe a school offering lots of activities is part of it.

Extracurricular stuff is non-negotiable with my children. If I let them they would do nothing and they spend far too much time doing that as it is. The only activity they are genuinely excited about is bloody horse riding which I hate and is far too expensive for them to do regularly anyway.

I’ve just had to let my youngest give up an activity she was really quite good at. She wanted to leave the team because she didn’t want any pressure and didn’t want to have to get up early on a weekend day.

I’m resigned to the fact that they will not be motivated but I am trying my hardest to ensure that they are busy at times. They just seem to like a lot of downtime. So different from when they were toddlers and would never stop. It’s frustrating and hard to know what to do.

Luck

I went to private school. I'm shockingly lazy and unmotivated most of the time

No experience avaliable here. My 8yo is struggling, but their worlds have been shaken up and disrupted since they were 6 and in our case, he spent 6 months with pretty much only a neuro-diverse sibling for company. He's not had normal, stable circumstances to develop his social and academic skills. It's taken us a long time to be able to get him tinted reading glasses too, so that's not been ideal either and we haven't had chance to see the benefits of that yet.

Some children do just take longer to mature anyway. 8 is only halfway to GCSE/ A-level age. Be supportive and encouraging. Engage with their interests, I got bored enough in lockdown to try minecraft and goodness knows I've seen enough gamers on youtube now, but the DCs love that I sometimes play it with them, and he was brilliant at explaining it to me from the basics of punching a tree. Try to vary their experiences. Mine grumbles about some extra curriculars but usually really enjoys them. Over time we've swapped some in and out. Sometimes things do just click, he's recently done that with swimming at realising what he can do and that learning to swim will give him more interesting opportunities in the future.

I often wondered this myself….. Ive one child very similar to OPs, other two arent so much. They are all parented in the same way, go to same school etc.

I think a lot of it is down to childs personality.

Perhaps Im not “pushy” enough. For example I wouldnt force my child to continue with an activity they hate as I would think whats the point in forcing them to do it they aren’t getting any enjoyment from it.

@Coffeeisnecessary To be honest, I don't know if it was the school as he was never "a star pupil" throughout his school career. He was surrounded by boys who worked much harder than him and got better grades (although his were good, but they were not 'out of this world good' or anything exceptional). He was always very laid back and a class clown type who was smart, but lazy. He always had a great brain for maths and was for example solving Rubiks cubes of all sizes for fun and doing them at really high speed, but that was just a fun thing he liked to do in his free time. He was never one to be particularly into homework or school work.

I guess he found his passion in IT and coding (whilst playing computer games with friends) and he became really fascinated by it. He really came into his own during his undergrad studies. He started getting Firsts in all his subjects and that's the first time anyone really noticed that he was actually super bright. He did engineering at undergrad and got an outstanding First Class degree (was getting over 90% in all his courses). And then the rest came from there.

But there was nothing about him that would have foreshadowed that at school.

My brother was one of those kids. Straight A student, popular, athletic, musical, charismatic, super confident... He could be anything he dreamt of. He wound up dropping out of University because the pressure of being "perfect" got to him. 6 years (and many dead-end jobs) later he's now back on his feet and is opening his own yoga studio - a passion he didn't find until his mid 20s.

As long as your son is happy and healthy, I wouldn't worry. He will find his way!

I am that kid Didn't do me any favours when I was in school though. I was bullied a lot. Being the kid with the hand up all the time was NOT a good thing in my school.

Dd is like this, although incapable of putting her shoes away.

Ds..... well, he's my pfb and I thought he would take after me. How could he not? I made him! But I'm also a lazy and pushy parent, so I think I've confused him into inertia.

How much screen time does he get?

I do think private school often has a lot to do with it, sorry.

Aside from that, at home you may need to encourage a precocious child- being able to hold a sparky conversation comes from knowing you are being listened to. Even if it's crap that they're spouting! Encourage opinions and debate, even when they complain it's boring Wish I had with my teenager. And push them out the door to get a job early, to earn a bit for themselves. 13/14 is not too young for a takeaway job.

Just my opinions, for way it's worth 😊

Are people seriously answering this post?

Oh, and encourage them to try their best at everything, and be proud of their achievements. My teen switched schools from a poverty area to a middle class area in secondary (both state) and the single biggest difference was the requirements to participate. Nobody was allowed to not put their hand up in class, or take the mick of others who did, as was the previous case. Good grades where expected and celebrated. It's made such a difference to her outlook on life.

By letting them do the things that they excel at and enjoy. One of my ds’s is incredibly sporty and very very good at most sports, he’s happiest playing football. My other ds is very good at gaming, he’s excellent at coding and really enjoys anything techy. I let them both do what the enjoy, I don’t praise one over the other they both have equally valuable skills. I know lots of people would lean towards praising the sporty outdoorsy one more because it’s seen as being out there enjoying life (these people are generally in the same camp as those who believe every one should get up at 6am to make the most of the day and anyone who enjoys a good lie in is lacking in moral fibre) but actually just because the other one prefers being indoors coding or designing of gaming doesn’t mean his skills aren’t as valuable. I think the confidence comes from being praised and encouraged to enjoy what they’re good at.

I should add swimming & homework is non negotiable.

Ive a friend & every minute of her kids day is scheduled. Even the summer hoildays. Every single day theres “a planned activity”
To me it seems absolutely crazy and so expensive.

They need to just potter about sometimes, make up games or just relax.

And @Elmoandbert you are not a failure.

Dear God, they are.

@SomethingLiteraryYearOfBirth why not? How we behave and parent has a big effect, and 'those' kids that the OP is talking about are often the ones who come out and meet the expectation of a successful life. If there's something we can do, why not?

It's not private school. It's self esteem. This best thing you can do for your child is to build healthy self esteem. IME private schools are good at building self confidence which is not the same thing.

@MooseBreath

My brother was one of those kids. Straight A student, popular, athletic, musical, charismatic, super confident... He could be anything he dreamt of. He wound up dropping out of University because the pressure of being "perfect" got to him. 6 years (and many dead-end jobs) later he's now back on his feet and is opening his own yoga studio - a passion he didn't find until his mid 20s.

As long as your son is happy and healthy, I wouldn't worry. He will find his way!

Things like this strike fear into my heart. I have an over achiever. She is a bit scary. She is like a big “wanting machine” who just pushes herself harder and harder and I’m terrified that one day she will break. She gets very anxious sometimes.

Ds is not the same. He doesn’t seem to have that same “need” to keep on achieving and achieving. He is very very lovely. Spending time with him is so easy and so enjoyable. We can just enjoy it rather than having to constantly push ourselves.

SomethingLiterary why shouldn’t they? A confident, sparky kid who did loads of extracurricular stuff and was always busy is exactly the child I wished I could have been. I wasn’t (although managed it briefly as a student when I could organise my own activities and time) and want my children to have the opportunity to be that. They don’t seem to want to though so I am trying to find a middle ground.

That’s the thing I think you know in your heart that your son isn’t happy and healthy. You need a plan rather than just a despondent wait around. Read Atomic Habits. A must. Get him to do say 3 healthy things before he can access computer games and lazy behavior. His sense of worthiness will grow through doing things that are good for him rewarded by the freedom to choose what he does next. He can moan all he likes and spend the rest of Saturday gaming but he needs to walk a Park Run or run it before he’s allowed to, make his bed and drink a big glass of water. Sounds ridiculous but firstly exercise, chores etc give a feeling of accomplishment even if they say it doesn’t. One only really enjoys a weekend because there’s work during the week. Switch the electricity off. Find if him a Squash buddy. On a weekend see if you can make an obstacle course inside or outside and he has to beat his time. Eg run around couch, carry a smartie under your chin drop it at front door etc. he needs to get off instant gratification.

My son is at a private school. And is still like this! I despair!

He doesn’t have to be Outgoing but he could really do with being engaged friendly and well mannered at a minimum - he doesn’t do any of this at all. A refusenik.

Take away the screens and they might force themselves to find other things to do?