Okay, Parents, the advice I give you this week will possibly save you hundreds of dollars. Gifted kids are interested in a lot. The activities they commit themselves to, though, are not as many. Before you take out that second mortgage to buy all the equipment, lessons, and necessary uniforms, it is worth figuring out if the request is an interest or a commitment.
Just how do you do that? Well, unfortunately, your child will swear it’s a commitment, whether it is or not. Kids want what they want when they want it. You’ll have to build up to your child being able to determine what is an interest and to what he is willing to commit. The only way to do that is to make every activity in which you invest a commitment. This means that your child will have to understand that he is in this activity to the end of the season or year or some designated opting-out point.
I have met many parents lately who feel that their children should be driving the proverbial bus when it comes to what they will or will not do. This is absolutely false. Parents were never meant to be the financiers and chauffeurs for a child’s every whim. I think two things have contributed to this lack of correct parenting. The first is the desire not to have one’s child throw a fit and thereby humiliate the parent in public. We had a cure for that when my kids were young. “Go ahead, embarrass the fire out of me. I guarantee, you will not like the consequences once we are not in public anymore.” The consequences involved anything from a spanking to restriction from items. Consequently, I can recall less than a handful of outbursts over not getting something they wanted.
The second reason is what I like to call “false guilt.” Some of it comes from the kids themselves, but more often than not, it comes from the talking heads. They make parents feel guilty for working long hours, for not indulging kids more, for being “dismissive” about issues the kids face throughout the day. Then the parents bend over backwards to make up for this perceived misbehavior on their parts.
I would like to release you from that guilt. Gifted kids come from gifted adults, and gifted adults are busy people. It’s okay; it’s what we’re teaching them to be. You should not indulge your child’s every whim. Enough said there. And, you should dismiss some things. If every time your children fight, you have a family meeting, you are going to be spending a lot of evenings in family meetings. Sometimes you just have to say, “Suck it up, Buttercup.” Of course, spend time with your kids. Of course, don’t dismiss everything. But don’t feel guilt if you are being pressured to do even more.
Okay, now that we’ve got you back in the driver’s seat, let’s talk about how to teach your kids to make a commitment to something.
1) Buy the necessities for the activity; make your child “earn” the “wants.”
2) Write out the date on which your child can discontinue the activity if he so chooses. Post it on the refrigerator where you can refer to it should it come up.
3) Find out as much as you can about the coach/teacher/mentor BEFORE signing your child up. Then if your child uses the common excuse of “the instructor doesn’t like me,” you will be closer to determining if this is actually the case.
4) Know that, for gifted kids, a desire to quit is actually a reaction to the fear of failure. Then teach your child that failure is acceptable, but quitting is not.
5) Feed some of your child’s lesser interests. Take him skating at an arena; go fishing at a lake; snorkel at a theme park; go to a music store and ask the owner to help your child pick an instrument on which he would be good.
If you will take the time to do lots of interesting things with your gifted kids, you might find that the list of commitments lessens to something manageable… for you and for your child!
-Michelle