Okay, the other thread where I wanted to discover this stalled in the total lack of my clarity, so maybe we can discover it here. Some parents believe that there is no limit how far and in what way they should push their children to "maximize their potential". At some places this attitude is at national proportions. It is surprising how few parents in the world think in terms of raising a "balanced individual". So, if you are a parent, where would you put the line between the win-or-lose and the what-the-kid-is?
Maybe even more importantly, if you are a kid, how do you save your piece when every minute of every day is already scheduled for you to discard yourself and to go full steam ahead to "maximize your potential"?
My young friend, you have actually asked a good and reasonable question, kudos. :mrgreen:
As a parent, it is common to wish for your children to excel in some way... many parents already have planned out exactly HOW they want their child to excel, and how they intend to get them there.
Now, this isn't bad in and of itself... it is better than parents who don't really care and are just "meh, whatever you want to do". The problem comes when a parent tries to hammer a square peg into a round hole.
Children are not
tabula rasa... blank slates on which to write. I know a couple who are ball fanatics, and all three of their children are ball fanatics and very good at it.
That's fine... but what if one of their children was not athletically gifted, or just plain hated playing ball? They don't have that problem, but what if they did? I'd hope they would look at the situation rationally, and if the child gave it their best try but just wasn't any good at it or hated it, that they would modify their expectations and seek some other venue in which the child COULD excel.
Same with academics. Some people are not suited to excelling in academics, but might have strong talents for art, or literature, or building/making things with their hands. There are many talents in this world, and almost everyone has at least one.... but not necessarily the one their parents WANTED for them.
Certainly parents should encourage and help their child to excel in what they do, but they should also be able to recognize when "the plan" is going to have to be modified.
Then there is the "upper limit". A lot of people don't like to acknowlege this, but most people do indeed have an upper limit in how far they can go in a given field of endeavor. For instance, if you want your child to play professional sports, they've got to start off with considerable native talent then work very hard at developing it to the max... even then, there's a lot of uncertainty in that line of effort. Not everyone has what it takes to play pro ball, and not everyone has the drive and desire to do the work. If your child doesn't have the potential, trying to force it isn't going to work. If they DO have the potential, but just really flat-out do NOT want to make the sacrifices and devote themselves to pursuing it, that is a train wreck in the making.
Ditto for trying to make a child into a rocket scientist when they bust ass and struggle just to produce B's in school. Most of us have an upper limit to what we can achieve... most people are not Magic Johnson, nor Albert Einstein.
Shouldn't we try to encourage and even "push" our children to excel in whatever they ARE good at though? Yes, it is good to do so... to a
reasonable point. Trying to force them to sacrifice anything resembling a normal life in favor of making the Olympic team
when they don't want to do that, is taking it too far IMO.
Balance.
I also know a LOT of parents who seem to schedule every minute of their children's life... every single day, the kids are either attending gymnastics or dance or karate or classes in something or organized social events, to the point that I wonder if the kid ever has five minutes to him/her self, or time to figure out anything about themself absent parentally scheduled activities.
Again, I think balance is important. Giving kids lots of positive activities is a good thing, but anything can be taken to excess.
That's my two bits...