How to get 5 year old passionate about something? (cartoons, average, game)
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Let him find his own way. Friends of ours pushed their daughter to learn the piano. After 10 years of lessons she could play just one song. I taught myself keyboards and recorded over a hundred songs in less time than that. Our son wanted to join little league and the Cub Scouts. Turned out he just liked the uniforms. He played baseball so badly the parents were yelling in frustration in the stands. He quit after a couple of games. He quit the cub scouts after the first 6 months. In high school he ran track because he wanted to. He got a bachelors degree in English and taught high school for a year and hated it. He joined the fire department because that is what he wanted to do. None of my children had the least interest in my hobbies or passions or what I did at work. It has to come from within. When he starts school and does homework, show interest in that.
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Originally Posted by koctail
We expose our son to sports, musical instruments and art but he does not seem to want to pursue anything with a passion. I figure this is the age where kids can become very talented in something if they start some focused training. Doesn't have to be 8 hours a day. Just as little as 20 minutes a day is enough to build the fundamentals. But he doesn't show the interest.
Do we just accept that he is not going to get to some world-class level at a hobby? Or do we need to nudge him into it? Or just forget about it and let him decide what he wants later in life?
I picked up sports, music and art seriously after the age of 25 . I have got to a respectable level in a few hobbies. Not world-class, but a good amateur level. I feel if I had some training when I was younger I would have got to a much higher level in these hobbies.
The number of people who have nightmares about piano lessons from their childhood vastly outnumbers the amount of piano virtuosos. Kids do need a little push, but I think they should have a choice in what they decide to pursue. However, 5 years old? I'd almost think you were trolling.
I haven't seen anything to suggest that starting music at 11 or 12 is detrimental in any way. Being world-class at something has just as much to do with genetics as it does practice. Do you think if someone starts training for the 100m dash at 5 years old then they are guaranteed to be a world class sprinter at age 20? Would it matter if they started sprinting at age 12 or 13 instead?
A world-class musician usually knows about 2-4 years in that they have that extra something most peers don't. If they start playing an instrument in 6th grade, they'd probably know by 9th or 10th grade that they are surpassing most other students. A mediocre musician who started playing their instrument in 3rd or 4th grade isn't going to be able to catch up to them because they have more years playing.
A world-class musician usually knows about 2-4 years in that they have that extra something most peers don't. If they start playing an instrument in 6th grade, they'd probably know by 9th or 10th grade that they are surpassing most other students. A mediocre musician who started playing their instrument in 3rd or 4th grade isn't going to be able to catch up to them because they have more years playing.
This is true for so many things. I was a gymnastics coach for many years. Most parents who enrolled their children in Mommy & Me or preschool classes realized that it was just for fun. There were a few, though, who made comments about how their children would end up better gymnasts than the ones who started later.
It wasn't true. I firmly believe that gymnastics and other sports are great for all children in terms of developing body awareness, coordination, balance, etc., but each person has only so much natural aptitude, and starting an activity earlier or later isn't going to change that. It was not unusual for a kid to come into the gym for the first time at 10 years old, who in a couple of months was executing skills that other 10-year-olds who had been there for 5 or 6 years still couldn't do.
I will say though most people who really have an exceptional ability in sports, art, music, etc. will have discovered it by puberty. Music especially so because an ear for music has a relationship to an ear for languages. People start to lose that ability to an extent after puberty; it has to do with physical changes in the brain. There are great artists and great writers who never picked up a brush or a pen until adulthood, but you don't really hear of great musicians who never touched any instrument until they were 30.
Please reframe your thinking. He is a child. A very young child. This sentence sounds like you're already disappointed in him.
^^^This.
I believe it’s a parent’s job to offer a child opportunities and exposure to new skills, activities and hobbies, to see where their interests may lie.
My nephews, to date, have taken karate, swimming lessons, gymnastics, pottery classes, hip hop dance, coding, played soccer, baseball, and hockey. They’re not going to be superstars in any of it, but they’re learning new skills, how to be part of a team, and becoming well-rounded individuals who will hopefully continue to be open to new things and be active in the world around them.
Don’t be the person who crushes their dreams for life if they can’t be a child prodigy or the next Sidney Crosby or Tiger Woods.
Get the kid passionate about sending his parents off for counseling. Then developing them as world class parents. Things should work out just fine after that.
Does your son have any friends? What do they like to do when they are together? He's five. He doesn't have to be passionate about anything. If you try to push he may end up automatically rejecting anything you suggest.
I never said I'm going to "push" him. If I just let him do what he likes then he'd probably watch videos 6 hours a day. Obviously there is some balance between pushing and letting kid do whatever they want.
It's a well known fact that kids pick up skills a lot faster than adults. My regret in life is not having any coaching for the things I was interested in at a younger age. I am trying to avoid that mistake. As an adult it's taken me years ( decades ) to get to a respectable level at music , sports and art. But I see kids with the right coaching get to my level in a few years.
I never said I'm going to "push" him. If I just let him do what he likes then he'd probably watch videos 6 hours a day. Obviously there is some balance between pushing and letting kid do whatever they want.
It's a well known fact that kids pick up skills a lot faster than adults. My regret in life is not having any coaching for the things I was interested in at a younger age. I am trying to avoid that mistake. As an adult it's taken me years ( decades ) to get to a respectable level at music , sports and art. But I see kids with the right coaching get to my level in a few years.
Yep. When you just let kids do what they want, you get hours a day of screen time and Oreos for breakfast.
5 is a great age to introduce coaching, lessons, and especially music. There's no good answer for how much pushing is too much; that's person-specific. Spending 5 hours a day pushing a young child to train might get you an Olympian, or (more likely) giant therapy bills later in life. Sometimes too much pushing inspires hate, sometimes it inspires that "aha" moment where they suddenly "get" it and fall in love with violin, tennis, or Kung-Fu.
It's good to start early, because kids get less compliant but more disciplined as they mature. It has worked very well for us to institute a solid schedule of training, academics, and fun from an early age. As they grow older, our kids have learned to enjoy difficult activities as they gained proficiency, take pride in learning new skills, and they've also done a good job of negotiating/planning for more time doing things they like (such as unstructured play or video games) while staying balanced with activities that are enriching and skill-building.
There's no clear answer, like most of parenting, pick where you think the balance of skilled and happy lies for your child, and aim for it. Re-evaluate often, and talk/bargain/negotiate with your child at their level as they mature and are able to take charge of more and more of their life decisions.
If you could find some K thru 3 school teachers to speak with, explain your situation and ask them to explain the concept of "readiness" with children. I think it is great that you surround your child with tools that they can learn with such as musical instruments, sports equipment, etc. Even take them to places
where they can gain quality experience for themselves that could contribute to his intelligence .
Readiness is a self initiating behavior that could only begin to emerge at his age. But the more parents
try to involve themselves the more it may retard that process. That is the child may quit trying to think for itself and come to depend on Mom & Dad for all of that. Kids are though to have learned half of what they will know in life by 4 and three quarters of it by 7 to 8. (second to third grade) By grade 4 children begin to break out of their view that the world revolves around them and forge an idea of who they are.
Boys will enter into a "gang stage" where one child who is somehow a leader type will attract other boys around him who follow.
TV and Internet (online games) should only occupy part of any child's day. It isn't a baby sitter to raise your kids any more than the teachers at school when he enters grade one. Quality has to go in as a person grows and develops.
There are numerous types of intelligence. It may be early to see these with a 5 year old but look for them in time. It is important to be instrumental in young kids lives but there is much need to be supportive. And sometimes being supportive means to stand by and give space such that when he reaches his readiness point he will have unobstructed opportunity to pursue it. Sure he may fail numerous times but that is all part of leaning. Kids who have learned to fear failing or have been berated for failing will often not attempt anything.
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