Advice for a dad....

My 5 year old daughter is much the same.  She CAN do everything, and if you don't believe her, she'll prove it to you.  She already can run a solid mile with me (probably in Z1).  We are doing a 5K at Disney in January.  She will be fine.  She doesn't like the swim so much, so that's keeping her from tris.  She rides her bike while I run, and has no problem biking 5-7 miles at a 9 minute/mile pace.  

I'd say, just lead by example and let the kids' find their calling.  It will change 10000 times, at least my kids' ambitions have!!  

That's so cute!

OK, I don't have any kids, but I have plenty of opinions! LOL! Grain o' salt and all that.....

You know, there's a LOT of space between pushing your kid too hard and not pushing them at all! I really wish my parents had pushed me at least a little with athletics. For instance, when i wanted to quit soccer, they didn't even try to talk me out of it. I wanted to quit and I did. No questions asked. Seems like there's some margin of error. And why is it considered good to push your kids in academics, but not athletics, anyhow?

Wendi- That's so funny about your daughter being able to do anything. When I was that age, I heard on some program that we only use a certain percentage of our brains. So I had this little theory that everyone actually had ALL the knowledge there is to be had, it was just a matter of "activating" that part of the brain and that's what we call learning. It involved tiny frogs and filing cabinets inside one's head as well (I wasn't a totally boring and analytical little kid!). Well, instead of explaining my little theory, I'd just walk up to people and tell them "I know everything." LOL! Oh, to be a kid again. :-)

I got challenged a lot on that one. People would say, "Ok then, what's the capital city of Madagascar?" And I'd say, "I haven't learned that yet," and go on about frogs and filing cabinets until they gave up. LOL!