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.

That’s interesting Nauday . Well one of my DC has also recently given up a sport they would have been great at (they were on a team and doing well). I am trying to be zen about it but internally feel rubbish about it so will try to take your advice (and that of others on the thread).

Nayday, sorry!

In my experience @DisorganisedOrganiser it pays to back off if they've gone off a particular sport. My DD did two sports from quite a young age and was absolutely passionate about one of them. When she got to 11 she totally lost interest and wanted to stop, no matter how much we encouraged her. However, left to her own devices she took it up again at 14 and a year later is now as passionate, if not more, than she ever was. She's nowhere near the level of an elite athlete but she loves playing and says it's the highlight of her week. I definitely think that the motivation has to come from them and when they find their "thing" they will really go for it.

Thanks Fraulein, glad your DD is enjoying it now.

It's luck. I have one like this, and two absolutely not.

I’m a nanny to 6 children and the eldest has been like this since I started when he was aged 2. He didn’t even want to do the toddler activities that all the others have loved! It’s just his character. He’s a lovely lad, now a teenager but that lack of motivation and well, everything is a struggle attitude has just been him from day dot! I think he has a lot of anxiety and that fuels it. His sisters are so keen to do activities etc. He never even wanted to go to the park 🤦🏻‍♀️ It’s very interesting as clearly raised quite similarly and same opportunities.

@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!

Your bro sounds super smart and smarter than many, resisting societal pressure to choose a top flight job and went instead for the more unusual yoga option as it'd make him happy. Cool dude!

Can so relate to this post.

I think he has a lot of anxiety and that fuels it.

I do think this is a massive issue.

Dd became best mates with a lovely girl at nursery and they remained friends through primary although they went to different schools.

They have both just finished high school with similar grades, largely in the 8s and 9s.

Friend who suffers from anxiety is doing a training contract with a local hair dresser and hopes to married with babies by 25.

Dd is doing a levels, hopes to do a law degree or a business degree apprenticeship and isn't sure she wants kids at all...certainly not before 30.

I'll be honest, having known her friend since she was tiny it seems like a waste of talent (she wanted to be a writer or English teacher at one point) but you have to take into account personality as well as academic ability.

I have those stereotypical bright confident children. I invested a lot time and money into extracurriculars (but would never in a 1000 years dream of forcing them to do anything they didn’t like).
The biggest difference I see between myself and many other parents I know is that for me games and screen time in general is not children’s “right” or something to negotiate. They don’t get it as a reward or any fixed amount every week and oldest started playing computer games occasionally at age 8 and a half. But we only do it sporadically when on a long drive or when we have an occasional lie in on a weekend. And even then she would often choose to read a book.
In retrospect I would not introduce screen time alone (as opposed to movie with the whole family say) before the child is reading books fluently and for their own enjoyment.

I don't see screen time has any correlations at all to whether dc turn out bright or confident.

It's human nature for adults to be terrified of the next generation's culture. Screen time seems to be the TV of our current generation (how I laugh at recalling not being allowed to watch ITV, IL sure that directly propelled me to my current career 😂). As were 'racy' novels to 19th century sensibilities.

There are lots of benefits to screen time
such as gaming, including it's many routes to careers such as coding/engineering.

There's undoubtedly some nurture in these alleged wunderkind but nature plays a part top - parents often credit themselves too much. Who knows if they wouldn't have done better with a hands off approach (looking at Skye the self taught skateboarding Olympian here, she was the opposite of ferried around to a gazillion sports clubs - naturally talented, well supported and home schooled - yes).
Funny how I look around the world of work and it all seems a bit irrelevant. Thankfully noone is banging on about their extra curricular activities or achievements. It's helpful for children understand what motivates them - their strengths and weaknesses - that is where extra curricular activities can add value and development, they are not an end in their own right.

Interestingly, Skye Brown - who demonstrates at an extreme level just how much can be achieved when someone has talent and support - talks about how 'fun' skateboarding and surfing are. She works her ass off because of her passion. Equally her parents are far from tiger pushy types - they've supported her every step of the way and her dad Stu is relaxed, - saying he had the attitude 'she could quit if it doesn't go well' as a hobby.
It's an interesting perspective.

Re:Skye Brown - she had her own ramp in a backyard and a dad who regularly skateboarded. Her family is also very wealthy and obviously very much supported her hobby and her media presence. They are just being smart about it.
Don’t be naive :)

@Brighterblighter

I don't see screen time has any correlations at all to whether dc turn out bright or confident.

“Screens” for young kids is an unhealthy and pointless addiction that eats away on time that could be productively spent on other things, basically. This has as much to do with being attracted to “coding” or “engineering” as eating sausage rolls has to do with becoming a chef later in life. Sorry for being blunt.

I went to state primary and was a precocious child. I would only make an effort with stuff I liked though, which was really only reading, drama and languages. I couldn't be arsed with anything sporty, or arty, or to do with science, but as those things weren't in the 11+, I passed.

And I was exactly the same when I went to an independent grammar school, but I became less and less precocious because there were so many girls there who were much cleverer than me. It didn't make me work any harder, just made me resentful because they all had ponies, went skiing and had expensive shoes.

@BFrazzled name calling is unnecessary thanks. I don't display naivety but am interested in the ways that successful people approach things. Am in no way suggesting it's a cookie cutter approach (unlike the hordes of parents desperately ferrying their kids to expensive activities that they have little interest in - in the vain hope that it will lead to some kind of 'success')

@BFrazzled you can be as blunt as you like re screens being a waste of time - you're still incorrect .

Incidentally, it's possible to be a gamer and read.

@Nayday
It is also possible to became a chef while loving sausage rolls…

The real question is why do you want one? Why is your kid not good enough?

Most parents ferrying their children to activities do it to enrich their children’s world in the best way they can. Most parents don’t have money to spend their life between Japan and California like Skye Brown parents but still strive to do the best they can by paying hundred pounds a term for a dance class or a football team - same thing really, just different parental means.

Both are quite different from letting your child to play Minecraft for hours (while you are busy doing your own thing) in hope that he will become interested in coding, LOL.

I have two dss, the older one is fairly able academically and at high grade exam level in classical music (age 12). He had always been a gamer though age appropriate stuff and hates fortnite . He enjoys coding also. He read early and if I'd only had him I might have been smug that he hadn't had games before he was an independent reader. But ds2 has autism, dyspraxia abs dyslexia. We are helping him with a small fortune worth of support but he may never read a book independently due to his learning delays - this is nothing to do with whether he has had screens or not. However speech to text programmes, audiobooks and so on are integral for him. He gets a lot of vocabulary out of streaming cbbc etc and things like his train app and his Roald Dahl app. Without technology his life would be much less rich. I think unless they are playing age 16-18 games all day that the screen thing is more complex than just thinking that banning screens will make your child a genius.

if I'd only had him I might have been smug

We only have one because of secondary infertility. DH and I sometimes joke that it was nature's way of not exposing how very average we are as parents! DD makes us look amazing...a second child would probably have given the game away!

My daughter is the last of 4. She is just turned 13 and pretty amazing (though my other kids weren't shy or retiring). According to her class teacher, she is the natural go to for the whole form if they don't know the answer. She has a very strong sense of social justice and stands up for the under dog. She has a few sm channels for her hobby and regularly has 2-10k views she attends cadets and has a very strong desire to go into medicine with a view to surgery through the armed forces. Her friend shop groups are solid. She also breeds small species pedigree animals for showing and has a great grasp of genetics and handling a small business. All of our kids have been similar but she is really something.

How did we do it? We let them have kids cartoons but balanced every minute of cartoon time out with us all watching a documentary of some sort. If something interested then we would really encourage it . We always had the news on just before dinner and would talk about what was happening and actively court their opinions. If we saw something unfair, we would lead by example and call it out.

I decided I wanted to do a postgrad, so I talked to them and they agreed to help me. They came to my graduation. Then i did other courses for fun and my husband retrained They see that education doesn't end at 18/22 and should be life long as it brings happiness and good things.

It's pure luck....my oldest girl 14.... in top sets ....top grades ...totally sorted, I have never once had to ask her to do her homework.

Her brother 12 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️....total opposite. All over the place....requires micro managing.....total fucking nightmare !