Anonymous wrote:I want my kids to be sucessful. It doesn't mean I want other kids NOT to be successful. In fact, I wish every person could teach their full potential.

This, 100% this.

I want them to be successful enough - so I guess that means being better than their peers at some things they enjoy, due to a combination of hard work, internal motivation, and likely some inherent talent. Ideally some of these things would translate to a career they can support themselves in a manner they are content with, and some will be solely for their own enjoyment and personal benefit.

I’d also like them to find something recreational that they may not be very good at, but still enjoy doing. Because there’s also value in enjoying and working at something that isn’t your forte.

I don’t want my kid to always be number one, or even almost always be number one. Because eventually you meet someone who is better then you, and likely better than you in more than one thing. And it’s MUCH better to meet people like that for the first time when you’re young, rather than in college or on the job.

And being the best can mean a whole lot of pressure to keep being the best.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. I want them to be happy. I don't care what that looks like. That being said...will being destitute make them happy? Or in a job they hate? I want them to understand that happiness often means setting goals and working hard to achieve them. If that goal is working at a hair salon or getting an MD doesn't matter to me.

This is the only comment in the entire thread that uses the word WORK.

Here's my question: at what age and how do you teach your kids to work hard towards their goals?
I don't see hard work being valued in raising kids. I get the impression that the parents of my kids' peers don't think it's worth pushing yet - 8 and 10 years old. Will those values come out in parents once kids hit middle school? Is hard work not cool?

I'm not sure it's ever too early to start teaching them that... It's hard work learning to walk, to talk, to write, to read... Pointing out their progress at each step I think instills in them the idea that they can do hard things.

For example, I show my daughter old sheets from when she was first learning to write letters (now she writes words) - she finds it super funny to see how "badly" she wrote back then, but, more importantly, it gives her energy to continue *now* with whatever hard word she's struggling with... I also show her videos of when she first started riding her bike (all the wobbles and falls), when she first learned "mary had a little lamb" on the piano, etc.

I think the tough part is teaching them to work hard, but smart. No kid wants to do tedious rote work if there is an easier way, nor should they. So I try to reward my daughter for finding the easier way, but I also point out that sometimes you just gotta buckle down and do the hard work. For example, she wishes she had a robot to do her laundry. Great idea kiddo, but you gotta build the robot first

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. I want them to become their peers bosses. I want them to be among the best.

Why?

Because when I look at my kid, and then look at a kid in my kid's class who is picking his nose and flicking it, and gets 70's on all his tests, I think she's better than him and don't want them to be equals.

Why does she have to be “better than” anyone? Can’t you just be happy that she doesn’t pick HER nose?

I spend very very little time thinking about other kids. Who has time?

Anonymous wrote:What a silly question. Being successful has a greater chance of achieving and maintaining happiness. Being unsuccessful has a greater chance of being unhappy and depressed. Simple math.

This. Plus, being smart, hard working, and successful was my ticket out of an extremely dysfunctional background. There is no way I would have been happy staying where I was and going down the path that was laid out for me. I hope that my kids won’t perceive their situation as dysfunctional, but being hard working and smart opens a lot of doors. And it’s always good to have options. I don’t have any influence on whether my kids are smart (from what I can tell by now they are probably just average). But I want to instill the value of hard work into them. This alone will give them better opportunities compared to many of their peers.

Yes of course. But that’s up to them, not me. I’m not reliving k-12 or raising a puppet.