AIBU to think parents should stop telling their kids that they can be ANYTHING they want

[michellet86]

Stop telling your children "you can be or do anything you want to"

This is completely untrue and a flat out lie.

I prefer the term "you can do anything you are capable of"

A lot of parents today i've noticed fill their young minds with a cotton candy view of the world and then wonder why their kids feel unaccomplished or sad when they start reaching adulthood.

if their ambition is to do as a career something people do for fun (acting, singing, dancing, football, writing, art, making TikTok videos etc.) then they need a B option that's something people only do as work.

This! Ive a lot of blunt conversations with my eldest about hobby vs jobby

I don't get why you would tell a kid they can be anything they want.i would just expect that they look at adults doing all sorts if jobs and make a decision as to what they might like to do.

So you'd lead a child who is not remotely academic and who is consistently in low sets at school, to believe that she can be a doctor?

I'm sorry but that is plain cruel. She's not going to be able to grow a highly academic brain. However she can be encouraged to look at the carers that she might have in a health or medical seeing.

Careers, not carers (though she might choose to be a carer!)

You're taking the statement literally. Of course you'd child can't be king of England, if they wanted.... they can't say I'll be a chart topping singer if they wanted...because not everything is in their hands.

It also depends on the opportunities available to your child. If you're struggling to heat your home and provide healthy food for your kids....it's unlikely they could do anything they wanted to, as your income may not be able to support it.

Exactly. There’s a huge difference between telling a child ‘I’m so happy you love your gymnastics lessons, they keep you strong and healthy’ and telling a child who is very tall and gangly, and not at all well coordinated ‘of course you can win a olympic gold in gymnastics, you can do anything!’

You can support your child’s interests and encourage them to follow them without giving them unrealistic ideas about the future.

I guess you haven't heard of a growth mindset. Sad

I always hear a Trump impersonator when I see "sad" used in this way.

Growth mindset is a belief system, nothing more.

www.talent-quarterly.com/does-growth-mindset-actually-work/

educhatter.wordpress.com/2022/07/03/overhyped-psychological-theory-what-does-the-growth-mindset-controversy-teach-us/

This one's good. Lots of links to other work:

learningspy.co.uk/psychology/growth-mindset-bollocks/

I like the concept of growth mindset in the sense of teaching a child to believe that working hard will lead to improvement in their own attainment as a standalone.

But it can't be taken away from the context of relativeattainment - if child B inherently is starting from a lower base than child A and they are both working hard & effectively, child A will still end up ahead/more likely to attain higher. Relative achievement sadly does matter in many many walks of life.

Its also important to understand the limits and practical implications. It might be that if child A practised maths, effectively and productively, for 10,000 hours, they could be become far more competent - but at what cost? They have other things to be learning and don't have that time to devote.

And its certainly true that while you can tell a child they have the capacity to improve its likely to lead to disappointment if you tell a low iq child whose speed and rate of improvement is slow, that they can become a doctor/nasa scientist etc.

I agree to an extent and always try to have honest conversations with my kids about my work and career and whybive changed jobs etc so they understand how the real world works.

However, with this attitude OP there's a bit of an element of 'stay in your lane' which I don't like because dreams and ambition are what people use to go onto great things, it just needs to be tempered with some realism.

Secondly, the message needs to be balanced as not all of us are in dead end jobs and hate our work - imagine telling all freshers are Uni on day 1
'welcome, but by the way 20-30% of you won't get a job that uses your degree and will probably come out of uni and work in a call centre' talk about shattering dreams and ambition!

But.. your statement comes into its own on my last point because I've run call centres and they're absolutely full of graduates, many of whom are shocked they've ended up there, maybe a little more realism was needed for them at the outset!

Well my 5 Yr old can't sing at the moment. I am not going to lie to her that she can. She has no natural talent for it and neither do I. She has shown no interest in learning how to sing so we have not explored it. Regardless I do not think she will be a rockstar!! why lie to a 5 Yr old?? I think that's just as 'mean' and 'cruel'. She is brilliant at several other things and we tell her this everyday. You can all parent however you want to but please don't tell me how to parent. You have no idea how well rounded a person she is!

I agree that ‘you can be anything you want to be’ is a harmful statement. It sets up unrealistic expectations and the young people can feel crushed under it.

I have 2 examples, 1 as a parent and 1 as a teacher.
My DD is very academically capable, and if she wanted most academic routes would have been open to her. But physically it is very different, she is short (5ft) hyper mobile with low proprioception and complex pain. This means lots of options she would like to do are not available to her. And I don’t just mean she won’t become a professional gymnast, but careers related to her chosen profession.

I taught a student in year 11 (choosing A levels) who wanted to be a pilot. Long standing ambition, was in air cadets etc… Trouble was despite working hard he was struggling to get a grade 4 in either maths of science (other subjects were similar grades). He would struggle with A levels and was not suitable for A level maths or physics. No one has told him that he was not going to become a pilot, just that if he wanted it enough he could do anything. It was incredibly sad, knowing the disappointment that was heading his way.

Endless optimism does lead to happiness, build students up to be resilient, to make the most of opportunities, be flexible with what life throws at them and link hard work to achievement are much better approaches.

My children wouldn't see "you can do anything you are capable of" as encouragement, merely a statement of fact. They'd probably see it as my way of subtly saying they won't amount to much!

Yes and no. It’s a difficult line to walk.

You are right that a lot of children end up having unrealistic expectations set by their parents hopes. I was constantly set up to believe that I would more or less walk into any career I wanted because I was “bright” (I was, but that’s not enough). My parents had glittering careers and just took as read that I would too and gave me little support or mentorship. I spent the first 10 years of my working life feeling quite cheated because I expected more than was possible of myself
. They would have done better to teach me I had loads of potential but I needed to match this with work and focus.

On the other hand I think it’s pretty disastrous to set kids up with the expectation that they will never achieve anything. This gives them no incentive to strive for anything and massively damages their self esteem.

I think the emphasis needs to be on setting realistic goals and focusing on working towards them.

I’m pretty I’ve seen numerous speeches from high flyers thanking their parents for telling them they could be anything they wanted if they worked at it, etc.

The average child’s wants, changes as they grow. They learn more about the world around then, manage their expectations and work towards their goals. They need to be equipped with emotional intelligence too

I think your ‘advice’ is a bad one tbh

I tell my kids that you don't have to be the best at something naturally to end up the best. David Beckham is a good example of a talented player who worked obsessively hours everyday from a young age to be one of the best players of his generation. Steve Jobs/Bill gates worked very very hard, too chances and happened to have access to computers before most of the world.
I tell them there is usually an element of luck but the number one factor for success is choosing to go for all opportunities and working hard.
Spielberg tells of a story of jumping of a tour bus in Hollywood studios and blagging his way onto a set. Opportunites are exceedingly rare so out yourself out their again and again..accept knockbacks and don't feel sorry for yourself.
The reason Eton et Al boys do so well is because they are constantly told they deserve to be the elite, that they will succeed and therefore they have the (often over) confidence to go for it with the expectation that everyone will believe in them too. The absolute opposite of imposter syndrome.
My football loving teens all know they won't be playing for City but they are on the school teams as they practice hard (and not because they are talented!)

Do all the boys at Eton succeed though ? At what they wanted ?

Are there children who fail and are the others strongly pushed in a single politician/ economic direction ?

Who decides what they are capable of? you? their teachers? the government?

The problem with this is that it implies people should rely on what others think they should do with their life.

I think kids should be raised to be resilient so they can cope with setbacks and confident so that they don't lose belief in themselves.

The world at the moment is full of incompetent but privileged middle-aged men who were told from childhood that they were right to expect the best and ended up in powerful positions. Confidence is engrained in them from birth.

Telling kids that they should contain their expectation to what you deem acceptable is a bit to ''know your place'' as far as I am concerned.

I tend to emphasise the work and dedication needed to get to where/what my DS wants to be.

He can ‘be anything he wants’, but some anything’s are more realistic than others. Some will require considerably more effort - and potentially talent/luck/connections etc.

In some cases, he’s clearly never going to get there but there are other things he could do instead. For example, telling him he should set his dreams on becoming an astronaut is unrealistic. He might have a better chance at becoming a rocket scientist, or aerospace engineer, or an astronomer, or a commercial pilot or a whole range of other things. But all of those options would still require significant effort and dedication to get there. And there’s lots of competition - some of whom started off in a better position than he did.

I realise that there can be a whole range of barriers that hard work does not necessarily overcome - but the most useful thing I can tell him is really to put the effort in and be a bit flexible about exactly what he wants to be, while recognising that you aren’t always going to be the ‘best’ in any situation.

He gets it, not least because he really enjoys sport and has plenty of experience of doing loads of training and then competing against others. So he’s learned that sometimes being the best is related to things beyond your control. The oldest and tallest kids in the age category tend to outperform the younger ones, but that all shifts at the next competition when the oldest kids have shifted into the next age category. You can be the best in your local area, but move up a level and the competition is tougher. Sometimes, you find kids that have basic advantages you just don’t have (physiological or in terms of support).

All you can do is work hard, try your best and enjoy doing as well as you can. Wanting something doesn’t just make it happen, but being willing to
work at it might increase the chances that it will.

No worse than believing in Santa or Tooth fairy.

Cheer up

Those who are against "you can be anything' jump to thinking this is about F1 drivers, David Beckham and winning pop idol

I don't see it that way. I see it as encouraging my daughter and son that they can be an engineer or a plumber or a doctor or a hairdresser or nursery nurse or work in a zoo.

You can do or be anything is about confidence, ambition and resilience. It's about opening them consider different opportunities. Work hard, apply yourself, follow your interests.

On the other hand I think it’s pretty disastrous to set kids up with the expectation that they will never achieve anything. This gives them no incentive to strive for anything and massively damages their self esteem.

Not a single person here has suggested that. Who would do that?

The world at the moment is full of incompetent but privileged middle-aged men who were told from childhood that they were right to expect the best and ended up in powerful positions. Confidence is engrained in them from birth.

Is not just confidence that got them there. It's the whole old boys club of people who were willing to give incompetent people a leg up and the contacts to get there.

That’s partly because ‘you can be anything’ does, at the extreme end, include being the best footballer ever or the prime minister or all sorts of things that are unrealistic (or impossible, depending on various factors).

There’s no reason why you can’t be realistic with you child and support their ambition though - they might not become prime minister, but they can definitely aspire to being a politician of some kind, or working in politics in various ways. They might not be Lionel messi, but they can play football (even if it ends up just being crap middle aged men playing weekly 5 a side and injuring themselves regularly because they believe themselves to be younger, fitter and better than they are - looking at you Mr Onyttig), and perhaps go into something related to it as a career (coaching of some kind, PE teaching, physiotherapy, etc).

I doubt many people are just telling their kids that they can be anything, however realistic. Unless they’re 3. There’s no reason to disillusion a 3 year old that he can’t grow up to be a t-Rex.

This depends on age a bit tbh. Telling a 5yo that they shouldn't dream of being prime minister because they aren't the right class is needlessly cruel imo. As dc get older, you have franker conversations about the challenges of certain roles, e.g. whether they will reach the needed grades etc.

Generally though, if a child doesn’t have an aptitude they soon learn that the work they need to put in to keep up with those that do is too much, and then their idea of what they want moves on.

I was a child who had my expectations “managed”. It was crap. I was bright, and talented at athletics. But instead of “you can do anything you want” I got well, being a vet is very competitive, and even if you get top
grades it’s hard to get in. So i’d adjust and say well maybe I’d like to be a vet nurse, and get well, your too bright for that, that’s only for girls not clever enough to be a vet…

I was also strongly discouraged from persuing athletics seriously. it’s a waste of time when you could be studying. Even if you get to the top of GB, you won’t beat the Americans/Russians/Eastern Europeans. Consequently I gave up, it’s one of my biggest regrets not knowing how far I could have gone.

so I tell mine it’s always worth trying. Even if they don’t get what the want, they’ll have gained a lot of other experience and knowledge along the way.