Feedback welcome: on parenting
Jan. 24th, 2008 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threadwalkerMy current question:
I see a ton of teens getting out of high school with no idea what to do with their lives. They hate school, so they don't go to college. Or they go to Junior College and putter around there for 10 years or so. To me, they appear directionless and with no drive to do anything with their lives.
I want my kids to pick a career path or vocation, regardless whether it involved college (although I prefer them to go to college). I want them to grow up, move out, and be big people in the big-people world. How do I get my kids to choose a life path that doens't involve laying on my sofa watching TV or plugging into computer games and guzzling Purple Flrup(1)?
All thoughts and feedback welcome. Feel free to ramble. You don't need to be a parent to have an opinion or insights.
Later I'll post what I've already started doing. I suspect the soft-fuzzy folks who prefer to solve family conflict with cookies and hugs will think of my house as being run by the Boot-Camp Mom from Hell.
(1) Jimmy Neutron reference.
I see a ton of teens getting out of high school with no idea what to do with their lives. They hate school, so they don't go to college. Or they go to Junior College and putter around there for 10 years or so. To me, they appear directionless and with no drive to do anything with their lives.
I want my kids to pick a career path or vocation, regardless whether it involved college (although I prefer them to go to college). I want them to grow up, move out, and be big people in the big-people world. How do I get my kids to choose a life path that doens't involve laying on my sofa watching TV or plugging into computer games and guzzling Purple Flrup(1)?
All thoughts and feedback welcome. Feel free to ramble. You don't need to be a parent to have an opinion or insights.
Later I'll post what I've already started doing. I suspect the soft-fuzzy folks who prefer to solve family conflict with cookies and hugs will think of my house as being run by the Boot-Camp Mom from Hell.
(1) Jimmy Neutron reference.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-24 02:33 am (UTC)My Mom did two things in particular that probably saved me: she was constantly exposing us to new things, new sports, new arts - I didn't know it then, but she was trying to find out what we were good at. Despite lots of trouble at home and socially, she also managed to get it across to me that it didn't matter to her if I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up: she told to be find a field that fascinated me and just do that. She told me later that she figured that I'd be more likely to finish if I was interested, and that a degree would ensure that I'd get a job I could live on, whether I worked my field or not.
What others have said above is often true: if they're safe at home they won't go, unless there's something Out There they want to do badly enough to go. I don't know how you get there, though - in my own case the only way the yelling was going to stop was if I moved out, and sure enough - I did, and it did.