For LeftBrain... "You are not special" (not Fight Club)

I don't know if I agree with that.  (warning, rant below)

Your job as a parent is to breathe life into your children's futures, not to tear them down.  You find out what their purpose in life is and point them to it with everything you do with them and for them.

We're all pretty goal-oriented people on here.  If you didn't have a goal (IM, HIM, Marathon, etc) would you work as hard as you do?  Identify your child's goal in life (you don't need to identify it for them, but you need to work with them to identify it) and then everything that they do builds-upon reaching that goal.

So instead of saying "You got an F in spelling and a participation award, but you're not special."

You can say "Do you think a (fill in the blank-astronaut, doctor, race car driver, Marine) needs to know how to spell?  Don't you think you should work a little harder on your spelling?"

My kids are only 5 and 4, but they are firm that they want to be a race car driver/engineer and a veterinarian (animal doctor actually) respectively.  It helps with everything.  Bath time, school work, play, everything for them to have a goal to work toward.  If they miss and they end-up as a mechanic and a dental hygenist, so what.

I think we bash the younger generations too much.  These kids will have more access to information at their fingertips from the minute they're able to ask questions and they'll likely learn so much more than any of us.  But we keep letting them wander until it's too late to get them on a path and then we wonder why our 24 year old has no idea what he's gonna do next in life.

[/rant]

I have high achievers (for 6 and 9 as they are) and they certainly get plenty of goal oriented support. But I still loved this cartoon.

You're special to me, but don't expect the world at large to think so. That is true.

FWIW, my son just dcided at the drop of a hat to run his first 5k the morning of my daughter's. i coach her Girls on the Run team. He is goal oriented. (He's the 6).

And somehow without brow beating it into him, We're instilling some kind of appreciation for earning things. At B2Battleship, I finished my first HIM after a DNF earlier this year. I was so late. They ran out of medals. My son was heartbroken. I was given/loaned one by a fellow BT user, since it was my first. (I finally got to send it back to its rightful owner.) Daryn tried to out it on my son Jack, but Jack adamantly refused. "I didn't do that race."

Just finishing gets a medal, and I see how that is probably part of the culture we're discussing here, but just participating does not. I don't have an Eagleman finisher award. He knows that. He watched me struggle that day. He also watched me finish for the one I did earn.

I warned about the rant. 

I do think "society" rewards mediocrity all too much.  But I also think it is the job of the parents to put the kids on the right path to begin with. 

It is a clever cartoon though.

"Do I get an award for listening to you?"  HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Of course you breath life into your children's hopes and dreams....that's your job.  Letting them know they aren't special is also your job. 

I know, I know......we're all special.

I guess my beef with the cartoon is that the "dad" doesn't offer anything useful to the kid.  Just like someone saying "we need gun control" without a plan to do so. 

Oh and Bob Costas is a raging idiot...

Do people really see this with their kids, particularly athletics?  My son is 6yo and it's already pretty competitive.  He swims with a program that churns out Olympians.  They are fantastic and it's a great environment, but the gifted swimmers are getting identified early.  His soccer club also puts out a bunch of D1 scholarship athletes every year.  Again, it's fun and they are really good with the boys of all abilities, but the ones that are really good are already separated in practice and drill together.  They certainly aren't watering anything down to accomodate the mediocre at the expense of the gifted. 

I think all this concern about rewarding participation is a bit overblown.

I don't think it is.....if you want your kids to be treated like they have to earn the next step in their athletic career you have to pay for it.  Your observations about swim clubs is right on the money....same with High Performance youth triathlon teams, or club soccer....but you pay extra for that.  Now, go watch the high school swim team and tell me what you think.......it's a different atmosphere. 

I haven't seen it, so I don't know.  But if you want your kids in a competitve environment, it's out there (for most, and as you point out, with the means to afford it).  But, how is this environment at HS swim team detrimental to anyone?  If the team has a gifted swimmer (with a decent coach), isn't that swimmer going to get the added attention?  If the coach is horrible, well all bets are off.

The funny thing is, I was listening to sports talk radio while reading this thread and they were talking about how extremely competitive HS athletics has become, particularly football.  At our public HS, it's all really, really competitive.  I was speaking with one parent whose kid spent their early life in the pool, but just didn't have what it took to be elite.  They were obviously fit, but other HS sports weren't really an option because everyone else had been devoted to that particular sport for years.

Football is an exception......I had wrote that origionally and then left it out.  The feeder programs for college football comes from the pee wee, then middle school, and then high school level.  Not so much with swimming, soccer, baseball, running, etc.  Many of the HS coaches in those sports have no business coaching kids.

Good point.  Maybe the real problem is not a fostering of a participation culture, but that elite youth sports is now big business and big money.  It's out there, but you've got to have the availability to drive to it and the willingness/ability to pay for it.  I guess I don't see this as a bad thing.  More kids than ever are participating in youth sports and there are more options for various skill levels.  Many of these programs are more recreational because the elite programs have already siphoned off the gifted athletes.  I really don't care if they give everyone a t-shirt or a trophy.

Yeah, I agree with that.

Best "I'm special"  momment at my house this year was on Thanksgiving.....my wife has a way of not letting anyone get to full of themselves.  My son gets done with dinner and heads over to the recliner.  He sits down and proclaims, "I'm so full, I hate this feeling"....my wife says, "then you'd really hate starving, which many kids deal with every day. Get up and bring the dishes over here." 

I love that! And it's true - you can tell all through the stages of life when you meet someone who still hasn't quite realized ... 

<clapping>

I let my son know that he's not the only one in this world.. and in the store.. from the age of 2. And you know what? I can take him places and not be embarrassed by his behavior. 

He's been labelled gifted.. but I say NOTHING about that. I ONLY praise his efforts. EFFORT. 

I am thick with the "I love yous".. and the time spends and the doing stuff with him and showing of empathy when things get tough in his little life.

But i love it when stuff is hard for him and I really love it when he fails. Coz that's when his character grows. 

Nice!

Most recent example, this weekend we went to watch a cross race (that stuff is ridiculous by the way).  We brought the kids' bikes and they were riding on a side street.  I was talking to a guy I ride with when the 3yo goes down and starts crying.  I yell, "Get up!"  The guy is like, "Is she ok?"  He doesn't have kids.  She got up.

Give her a medal.

We give out FINISHER long sleeve tech shirts just for making it through dinner.