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>I think it is common for a child of his age to follow his parents' instructions. True, but the parent should be making these decisions as a advocate for the c

by xnyan 5y ago

>I think it is common for a child of his age to follow his parents' instructions. True, but the parent should be making these decisions as a advocate for the child, and not looking at the child as a resource for their own benefit. I get that this is not how it's always been done, but if you are lucky enough to live in a time and place where we don't need the labor of our direct children to survive (New Jersey 2021 counts IMO), then you have a duty to act (as best you can) as the child would if they had a fully developed sense of reason and self expression. Personally, I would be thrilled if my father had supported my development into a grand master.

nomorewords 5y ago
I think a counter argument could be that kids that young still don't know that much about the world and it's going to be a very hard thing to motivate yourself to become better at such a young age when you are already ahead of so many of your (offline) peers. Of course, this is offset by the internet, a bit, but it still seems a valid point to me. How do you teach someone hard work and work ethic? I don't think many kids are willingly going to run themselves into the ground trying to become the best. Looking at my past, I kind of regret not being pushed further by my parents. I'm not some top achiever or anything like that, but I was good enough in the things I did (amongst the peers in my smallish town) that I could get away with the "I'm already better than X/Y, get off my back!"