What Kids can do if you LET them

[Dauntless]

I remember back in grade school when my mother would get on her kick of not letting me do my homework, then lying to the nuns when I told them that's why I wasn't turning it in. Literally, if he found out I'd hidden somewhere and done it, she'd tear it up. When I read of this high school girl who got a multimillion dollar book deal after her first novel went over so big, I remember why NOONE in the family found out I had submitted some articles that were published in a teen magazine when I was in sixth grade, until they called the house looking for me about what else they could have me write. THAT was the end of that.

So what would mom have done if she had found out I was building something like a portable DNA lab? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/fred-turner-17-year-old-b_n_3021633.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl11%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D294455 I just marvel at the thought of parents letting people do things. Today it amazes me to realize she let me build bikes or several other things, but I guess that was because she took most of the money I was making.

I wonder how many other parents stop their kids from doing what are considered good things. That girl never let her parents see what she was writing. Yeah, I don't blame her, I know my mother would have tried to control it. They said her books will rise or fall on her teenage perspective. . . .

 

[neptronix]

When you are that young, you are at your mental and physical peak. It's a shame that we cluster kids off from society until they're 18, and actively work to beat the creativity and curiosity out of them.

 

[spinningmagnets]

In high school I took a semester of piano. Since I already played a trumpet in the marching band (this one time, in band camp...), it meant I could already read music. So, she couldn't really teach me along side the kids who couldn't read music. I was pretty much by myself.

I asked about playing a song I liked, and would have loved to be able to play as the tool I would learn to play the piano on. She said it was too hard for a beginner, so she assigned me a simpler song that I didn't like. My grade depended me on doing what she wanted, and I did just enough to pass the beginners piano class and got as far away from her as I could.

If you can find a way to get a kid excited about a project, you will be shocked at how much they can learn, and also what they are capable of learning. If they have an interest in EVs, maybe have a parent/child project; making a motorized longboard, or a low-powered 20-inch bike (currie-style?). Imagine how they'll feel when the other kids in their school show an interest, and when they ask where your kid bought it...your kid says "I made it".

 

[Farfle]

I feel for the kids who are cooped up in college classrooms being taught how to think, and I am very grateful for my parents who let my pursue my "crazy electric bikes". Because of this, I guess I am the example that nep and spinningmagnets talk about where when someone has an interest in something and a way to pursue it, they can learn in leaps and bounds. Three years ago I was bolting on off the shelf parts to a cheap MTB, and now I have a completely scratch built motard that will go head to head with production motorcycles.

 

[lbz5mc12]

Why wouldn't your mom let you do your homework, Dauntless?

 

[Dauntless]

(I did actually consider the possibility someone would ask that, but it was all a part of my thoughts on the matter.)

Darn, were you lookng for a SIMPLE explanation to the complex situation?

1. The stated reason would be from the part where she'd be screaming "I--AM--MOTHER, when I say. . . ." i.e., showing she was the boss. But there's not much coherency in any stated reason she ever spoke.

2. I suppose all those painkillers that came out of her purse at a moments notice when one of the kids was sick had something to do with it.

3. I really attribute it to the fact that I was the 3rd son in a Catholic family, whom urban legend has it is somehow CONDEMNED to be a priest. My mother was really infuriated by me being interested in ANYTHING that wasn't compatible with that; such as in 8th grade when my sister frog mouth was at her friends' house whose younger sister was in my class and best friends with the girl I had a crush on who was also at that house right then and then FROG MOUTH just had to come home and get started. . . . So these days when Mom has a priest at her place, she no longer starts anything about me not going to church in front of the priest, because I'll respond "It's too dangerous in church. Can you believe my own mother was trying to force me to be a priest. Can you imagine anything so HORRIBLE?" Oh, can you imagine the looks on the faces of these priests up until Mom finally learned to shut her yap?

But as to why exactly she at times wouldn't let me do my homework, I can't say I know for a fact it was any particular reason. I have merely assumed that her addled mind thought that my doing well at school would interefere with her fiendish plot, even if her psychic did promise her I'd be living in a seminary by my junior year of high school. This theory is reinforced by the fact she sent me to an unconscionably incompetent high school that was part of a seminary that she insisted I'd be entering. When the fool priests brought it up I warned them I'd burn it to the ground before they'd hold me prisoner there one night. That damn nonschool burned my secondary education to the ground.

But if you still just have to find the simple explanation in it all, let's just say she was and is a twisted freak.

And yes, this is all precisely true. Have you figured out yet how Dad came to call me 'Dauntless?'

"Sanity is a madness put to good uses."
-George Santana

And those who misquote someone are condemned to paraphrase him.

 

[lbz5mc12]

Yeah I've got a few of those in my family but unlike your mom they can't use religious fanaticism as an excuse. Most of their issues stem from manic depression and back alley drug deals. Oh man are the holidays fun.

 

[friendly1uk]

My brains come from my dad, but I lived with my mum and step dad. They had no idea what I was capable of, and held me back in every way, while installing no will to work at all.

They knew my real dads side are all self employed except my real dad who went in to garage work, becoming the merc workshop foreman by 21. Youngest workshop foreman in many counties with no desire to move away from the tools so stayed there. When our car developed rust spots, the step dad tried covering them with all the wrong things, but wouldn't let me near. On another note I had to steal his drill to take it to work and fix it for him. He had never been so unhappy. He didn't think his electrician son could possibly fix a drill. He didn't even think I could daub rust eater on. Some people have absolutely no idea how to weigh up others. It does not stop them trying to control them though.

We should all want our kids to find work they enjoy. If your kids display an interest in something you should let them explore it. To many parents 'own' there children, and push them in the wrong direction. A direction they won't continue in anyway once they gtf out of there.

 

[Dauntless]

Religious fanaticism was ONLY an excuse, she's not a real practicing Catholic. (Physics are not allowed, etc.) I'll acknowledge that some of the older brothers and sisters got screwed up by their mother, but ma was even worse to me without me doing any of that.

 

[lbz5mc12]

I feel for you. I had two great parents and three worthless step parents. I'm down to one good parent, Mom, and no step parents. Dad passed away in '09.