TRYING TO DIVINE YOUR CHILD’S UNIQUE POTENTIAL

• You want to help your child grow up to realize her full potential in areas where she is particularly gifted. The examples of child prodigies such as Mozart come to mind: what if his parents had not introduced him to the piano at age 3?

• Each slight interest becomes an untapped potential to be explored: what if your child could be the next great piano, soccer, or chess player? If your child starts piano and does really well, does that mean switching to the best teacher in the area?

• The plethora of activity choices puts you in a position of constantly screening your child’s potential talent or passion. For some kids, this becomes readily apparent, but for the vast majority, it’s tough to do with a kindergartner. Then suddenly by age 9, it’s too late to start many, unexplored competitive activities, and your child is, for competitive purposes, prevented from participating.

WANTING THE BEST FOR YOUR CHILD

• As a conscientious parent, you naturally want the best for your child. Yet, it’s often easy to confuse wanting the best with being the best.

• Parental love has become entwined with a perceived responsibility to indoctrinate your child into the land of opportunity. If you love your child, you will provide her with the best lessons, classes, activities, and sports exposure to help her grow into an exemplary adult.

• Don’t fall into the trap of considering early achievement to be all-important. You only have to read the newspaper to see examples of young children’s quests gone awry, such as seven-year-old Jessica Dubroff crashing her plane on a quest to set a new solo flying record.

• We are raising our children in what some have come to think of as “The Age of Anxiety.” You need to step back and carefully consider what is the ultimate goal of all this activity mania and what will ultimately make your child successful.

• Jam-packed schedules and activities are simply not the cornerstone to shaping your child’s adult self-actualization or a guarantee of her future happiness.

• Shift the emphasis in your words and actions to encouraging and supporting your child to do her best, rather than trying to be the best.

DON’T RELIVE YOUR OWN CHILDHOOD

• Try not to impose your own passions on your child, as many parents do despite their best intentions. It’s hard not to relive your youth through your child, bringing your own hopes and aspirations to the table. It’s difficult to accept that while you were a tennis ace, your child has absolutely no interest in picking up a racket.

• Conversely, activities that you failed in as a child can be as emotionally laden as activities in which you excelled. You want to make sure that your own childhood experience doesn’t lead you to push your child in the opposite direction. It’s tempting to vicariously experience something that may have been lacking from your own childhood. Take a moment to be clear about whose needs are being served. Selecting a sport only because you felt unfairly teased for not making the team as kid is not the way to go.

• What motivates you about your child participating in a particular sport or activity and what motivates your child are often fundamentally different. Your child may not love the sports you did as a child or you have picked for her to do, and you have to respect that, as well as recognize how hard it may be for your child to tell you this outright.

• Resist only selecting those sports that you personally enjoy or excelled at or want to coach, particularly if your child shows no interest in them.

YOUR CHILD’S SUCCESS AS REFLECTED GLORY ON YOU

• Reflected glory can be sweet and intoxicating. When someone says to you, “You’re the parent of ____?!” who just scored the winning goal or played a concert solo, you beam with pride and accomplishment.

• Remember your child is not an extension of yourself, but rather a person with her own likes and dislikes, setting out to realize her own goals. Respect your child’s uniqueness and the fact that she might have different dreams and ways of doing things than you’d expect.

VALUING YOUR CHILD AS HUMAN BEING VERSUS A HUMAN DOING

• There is an underlying pernicious message our children absorb: they must not be good enough just being, it’s only through doing that they validate themselves in your eyes and in those of their peers, coaches, and teachers.

• Your child will thrive most when she has a close relationship with you, a happy, relaxed family life, and a deep understanding that she is loved just for being herself, and not because of the activities at which she excels.

BACK TO THE BASICS: ALL ABOUT HAVING FUN

• First and foremost, activities can and should be fun for your child. The more fun it is, the more likely your child will continue to stay active later in life.

• Look for an activity that your child can continue to play and appreciate into her adult years.

• Excelling and winning in the forms of all-star games, trophies, Little League World Series Championships and Youth Super Bowl titles have taken precedence over having fun. This is true for music, dance, and other competitions, too.

• Stay in touch with your child’s feelings about the program. If he does not enjoy himself, find another activity for the time being.

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