How many of you have made your child do something they didn't fully want to do?

Parents Social Lounge
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<p>Easy enough question, you ever make your child do something which they weren't completely interested in? Whether it was a sport, volunteering, job, etc, were they made to do something? Whether for the purpose of college admissions later on in life, for their own mental/physical stimulation, tradition, etc. </p>

<p>Alternativley, did you ever encourage them or ask them if they wanted to do something? "Do you want to learn to play an instrument?", "Do you want to play baseball", etc?</p>

<p>And then on that note, did you make them do the hardest most rigorous class at your school? Full IB, as many APs as you could, running start, etc.</p>

<p>And just all in all, is there anything they were forced to do because of your authority figure which later impacted them for college applications?</p>

2

<p>Question 1) No never made them do things similar to your example. We do “make them do things as part of the family unit”. We also don’t give allowances so to “earn money” when they are young, they need to do chores and they need summer jobs post age 15 or they have no moolah.
Question 2) Of course.
Question 3) No, they choose their own classes, at their school we have to sign-off each year on their choices, but they choose. We have never required them to change anything, they put pretty darn good schedules together on their own.
Question 4) No, they understand and have for many years that the choices they make today might impact what happens down the road.</p>

3

<p>Used to try to “make them” make their beds and clean up their rooms. Quickly gave up on that one. Now, if their pile of dirty stuff is in the general proximity of a laundry basket, I consider it success.</p>

4

<p>I wouldn’t say I “made” them do anything. I encouraged them to try some things. But they pretty much followed their own interests. </p>

<p>On the other hand, my daughter has a tendency to try to do too much. I refused to allow her to try out for one particular activity her freshman year. She was furious for a day or two, but two weeks later she told me she was really happy she wasn’t doing that activity because she just did not have time for it. This year she was on the fence about quitting a long-time EC. I encouraged her to go ahead and quit. She did, and so far we both feel it was absolutely the right decision. But if she had insisted on sticking with it, I’d have continued to pay for it (and it was expensive!).</p>

5

<p>The list would be too long. They always end up loving it though.</p>

6

<p>We made ds2 learn to ride a bike when he was about 5. He was scared, but we thought it was important that he know how. I will be curious to see how this affects college admissions in three years. ;)</p>

7

<p>Years of swimming lessons until I was convinced they could swim well. </p>

<p>I sent S2 to a camp he’d begged to come home from the year before. It was clear to me (though not to him) that he would like the camp if he could just be in the same bunk as his best friend. We arranged that the next year and he had a ball and went every year until he aged out.</p>

<p>(I doubt either of these impacted college applications.)</p>

<p>We switched S2 from regular to honors chem as a freshman. It was a bad fit with the teacher. I regret doing it, but with the information we had at the time, I’d do it again.</p>

<p>I made my oldest apply to Harvard even though he wasn’t at all convinced he wanted to go. He got in, went to accepted students weekend, liked it better than he expected to, but still turned it down. That was okay, I just wanted him to have choices. </p>

<p>I did not make my oldest take the hardest possible schedule. I knew there was a risk to not taking AP or honors English as a senior, and its lack may have been the reason for the some of the rejections he received, but it was his choice. He spent his senior year doing different productive things he liked better.</p>

8

<p>Never “made” them do anything. I couldn’t. All I could do was create conditions that made their desires somewhat in tune with what I considered their best interests and my best interests (toilet training.)</p>

<p>I couldn’t make them walk to be toilet trained. I could let them know I wanted them to and I considered that the time had come.</p>

<p>I wanted them to learn to ride bikes. I spend a lot of time doing it as a kid. They didn’t.</p>

<p>I wanted them to take driver’s ed. They didn’t.</p>

<p>I wanted them to play musical instruments. They did.</p>

<p>I wanted them to go away for parts of summers to learn new things and get used to being away. They did.</p>

<p>I wanted them to learn to be polite. They did.</p>

<p>I wanted them to work hard at school. They did.</p>

<p>I wanted them to find things they liked to do and do it. They did.</p>

<p>I wanted them to do sports. They didn’t.</p>

<p>Well, you get the idea. You put out a smorgesbord (spelling?) and they graze. It’s okay.</p>

9

<p>After being forced to take dance and piano lessons myself, and having abandoned both as soon as I was allowed to, I was determined to let my kids find their own way to music. I paid for lessons when they asked for them, though we had a few hiatuses on lessons when they didn’t practice enough. S became a guitarist and composes, but these skills were irrelevant to his college apps. D sings, and is a musical theater major, so it was definitely a factor in her college path.</p>

<p>I did force swimming–it’s a safety issue.</p>

<p>So what prompts this question, Lafalum84?</p>

10

<p>But, ummm, the youth choir at church really NEEDED a tenor so they could do S-A-T arrangements. He will forgive me someday. (Actually, he already has; an activity where he is outnumbered by girls is becoming more and more acceptable over time.)</p>

11

<p>I still really want him to take fencing lessons, but I sense this is not to be. He would say, “Mom, if you really want someone in the family to fence because the instructor is so good and fencing is so cool, why don’t YOU take fencing lessons?”</p>

12

<p>I think if were all honest, we would have to say yes, we made them do things they didn’t want to do. Yes, I took my kids to events they didnt want to see. It wasn’t punishment, but it was a way of opening up their eyes. </p>

<p>I made/pushed/encouraged my daughter to help with a brownie troop. She had too much free time, and while she really didn’t want to do it at first, once she started, she had a good time. Would she have done it if I didn’t “make her”- no. Am I glad I made her, yes. Did she grow from it, absolutely.</p>

<p>With my oldest, she had issues with her hair turning curly. Life was torture. So I made her/ did not allow really, her to try and mash her hair like all her classmates, she didn’t have straight hair,and as a 12 year old, she needed to learn to love who she was and her hari and THEN she could work with it. After two days, people came up to her and said, OMG your hair is so pretty!!! Yes I made her go natural. She was mad, but life with tears every morning because she had curly hair was something she needed to get past.</p>

<p>Yes, I made them do some volunteer stuff, but I always did it with them. After the first time, they wanted to go back.</p>

<p>Sometimes parents just have to say, do this. And I can bet you that many parents have, maybe just don’t want to come across as the mean ones</p>

13

<p>MommaJ, I didn’t start the thread. Poseidenj is the original poster. I was also wondering what triggered the question, though…</p>

14

<p>I sort of made my D try a particular sport her freshman year of high school even though she really really really did not want to. (There was a bribe involved, which is why I said “sort of”). Much to my surprise, she chose to continue with the sport after the first year. I’m sure there are other things I made her do, but that one is fresher in my mind.</p>

<p>I’ve always encouraged my kids and suggested things for them to do. I suggested (repeatedly) to oldest D, who was pretty good at a particular sport when she was young, that she try the travel club. She refused. Then when she was 12, she decided she would go out for the travel club, and had the nerve to complain that I hadn’t made her do it when she was younger. You can’t win.</p>

<p>I’ve suggested to my HS D that she try certain courses that are more rigorous than what she was intending. She’s taken a couple suggestions but certainly not all of them. I express my opinion and step back; she picks her own courses. She does not take the most rigorous courses at her school. Next year she’ll have two honors courses, an accelerated course and an AP, but there are honors sections offered in courses where she’s taking college prep level. Although I think she’s capable of all honors, I’m not pushing because she needs to get there on her own. She understands, because I’ve told her, that she’s foreclosing some options, but I don’t think they’re options she’s really inteested in.</p>

<p>The jury is still out on whether anything I’ve made the kids do will impact them for college apps.</p>

15

<p>@ anyone wondering, I’m actually conducting a small research project (with people I don’t know, and people I do know, both will remain anomymous of course) on the parents role in the college admissions project.</p>

<p>When I posted this here/on the admissions page I was in a bit of a rush so couldn’t explain everything fully, and now I’m also in a bit of a rush, so when I get back I will fully explain what I am doing.</p>

16

<p>"Easy enough question, you ever make your child do something which they weren’t completely interested in? Whether it was a sport, volunteering, job, etc, were they made to do something? Whether for the purpose of college admissions later on in life, for their own mental/physical stimulation, tradition, etc. "</p>

<p>House rules were that kids needed to have at least one EC. This was for their personal development – finding things that interested them, developing their talents, learning social skills, etc. When older S decided he didn’t want to ride the bench for the soccer team another season, we insisted that he find another activity. He chose to volunteer editing at a local community weekly, which was fine with us. </p>

<p>Younger S was a perfectionist who if we had let him, would have still been figuring out what activities to be in when the school year was over. Consequently, I picked his ECs, looking for things that seemed to match his interests. He could quit them at semester’s end if there was something he liked better. If I could do it over, I would have insisted that he do at least one activity with students his age because he went to college lacking some basic social skills due to his spending so much of his time with adults when he was in high school.</p>

<p>By the time he went to college, he was able to pick activities for himself, and has been far more adventurous and active in college than I was.</p>

<p>As a family, we’ve always done community service including some with our kids. We never had to tell our kids that they had to do it, but they knew it was a non optional family activity.</p>

<p>“Alternativley, did you ever encourage them or ask them if they wanted to do something? “Do you want to learn to play an instrument?”, “Do you want to play baseball”, etc?”</p>

<p>Both of our sons volunteered that they wanted to play instruments. We stopped playing for younger S’s lessons because he didn’t practice and I didn’t believe in hounding kids to practice. Older S, whom we considered to be tone deaf, loved playing his rock guitar so much that we’d have to ask him to stop practicing. :)</p>

<p>“And then on that note, did you make them do the hardest most rigorous class at your school? Full IB, as many APs as you could, running start, etc.”</p>

<p>We left the choice of high school curriculum up to our sons. Both chose full IB, but younger S decided to switch out to an AP-intensive program his senior year. </p>

<p>Older S used to complain daily about IB, and H and I would tell him that if he didn’t like it, he could withdraw from it. Although he hated the program, he insisted on finishing it. However, he can never blame his dad or me for that experience.</p>

<p>We helped our kids get involved in summer activities that interested them. Younger S liked the TIP camps. Older S hated the thought of doing something academic over the summer, so we sent him to a sports camp and also helped him find an out of state journalism internship.</p>

<p>"And just all in all, is there anything they were forced to do because of your authority figure which later impacted them for college applications?</p>

<p>When younger S couldn’t make up his mind to take a peer counseling facilitation program, I insisted that he take it because I was sure he’d enjoy it and it would play to his talents and his interest in community service. I was right: It changed his life in a good way, helping him gain much confidence and valuable skills. It also helped him get merit aid, a countywide award, and a small additional scholarship, but the main reason I had him do it was because I thought he would find it fulfilling, which was the case.</p>

<p>In requiring our kids to do things, H and I were interested in their developing their skills and talents, finding out about possible careers and hobbies, and learning how they could give back to society. Our guidance was to help them live fulfilled lives, not get into the best possible college.</p>

<p>Both of our son’s ECs helped them get merit aid for college, and that allowed them to go to the colleges that they most wanted. Without the ECs, older S wouldn’t have been able to go to an out of state public like he desired and younger S wouldn’t have been able to go to a private LAC.</p>

17

<p>When DD said, “Can we keep him?” my reply was, “Only if you keep his cage clean; otherwise, Mr. Rabbit will go back to where it came from.” The Easter bunny shamelessly dumped on our property lived in his (mostly clean) cage for 6 years until he died of natural causes. I let DD choose her school, her HS classes and her ECs, but she had to clean the rabbit cage (and yeah, she was not really interested in doing it :D). To be fair, I took over the cat liiterbox cleaning duty.</p>

18

<p>Yes, I have to admit that I pretty much required my sons to apply for NHS. The reason being - “this is for mom”.</p>

19

<p>The rule in my house is that if you join an activity, you have to stick out the season or whatever. No quitting halfway through because you don’t like the coach, didn’t get the part you wanted ,etc. I have seen too many kids try out for things only to drop out if they aren’t the star. Not an option here.</p>

<p>As for classes, both D & S are more than capable of handling a rigorous course load, so that is our expectation for them. D was determined to get accepted at her dream school, so we didn’t have to force at all. S is also interested in some very competitive schools, so at least at this point it’s not been a problem. I realize that each child’s capabilities need to be taken into consideration, but I am not a parent who will allow my kids to slack.</p>

<p>I do make them do chores at home. Not a ton, but they do have to pitch in.</p>

20

<p>My main contribution has been driving my kids places. Seriously.</p>

<p>My parental philosophy was that if they were bored, I did not tell them what to do next, but told them to wait a bit, and they would figure out what to do. Then if they needed some paper or crayons or glue from a high shelf, I would get it for them. So, I facilitated, but did not direct. </p>

<p>Once the kids are interested and then involved in something (dance, music, theater, volunteering) then I fully support them by being available to get them there, and to sign anything needed, and to pay for it (although they also contribute, voluntarily, increasingly as they get older).</p>

<p>The other thing I do, is find the next teacher when they hit a plateau with the one they have. Helping maintain inspiration is important, and often sort of behind the scenes. Kids are not really able to do the kind of research and networking that I do to find teachers and classes that can keep progress going, but now that they are older teens/college age, they do that themselves also.</p>

<p>This has nothing to do with college, but with developing passions. They hit a wall in terms of the learning available locally, for instance, and it is just obvious to them that they need something new. Their sense of this, and mine, both drive this, but it has to come from them- and I will make a lot of suggestions that they can try.</p>

<p>My kids talk to me about their academic choices, but I certainly do not tell them what to take: I listen actively, and will answer a question if they ask. One dropped back two levels in math in order to take a music class, and it worked out great. One could take more honors classes, but the homework would interfere with an important extracurricular.</p>

<p>Two of my kids are now at top colleges, and the third is not going at all, for the moment. They are incredibly different. I strive to be wise about each individual child, and have no general wisdom on all this. I think that if we are consistent in our philosophy, our kids do well, regardless of what that philosophy might be. I know families that are quite directive with their kids, and they do really well too.</p>