Anyone who doubts that children are born with a healthy amount of ambition need spend only a few minutes with a baby eagerly learning to walk or a headstrong toddler starting to talk. No matter how many times the little ones stumble in their initial efforts, most keep on trying, determined to master their amazing new skill. It is only several years later, around the start of middle or junior high school, many psychologists and teachers agree, that a good number of kids seem to lose their natural drive to succeed and end up joining the ranks of underachievers.
- TIME MAGAZINE
Ambitions are soaring. Everything is possible. Kids, today are growing up listening and believing this. Considering they are in the ‘unconscious inefficiency’ mode their belief in this theory strengthens. Most of the children, even today, aspire to become an engineer or a doctor. It is only later in life that they realize that there are more options or that their skills and talents are attributed to some other industry. Fashion designer, chef, cricketer, singer, dancer, actor…they can choose to become anything and the best part is that parents and the society are accepting these choices. (The interesting thing here is that our generation never dreamt of being an engineer or a doctor. I didnt even know what an engineer did till I was in 9th std. Yes I might have been slow but I was part of an ignorant majority. It was good to be part of a 'didnt know it all' generation of kids. I remember kids wanting to be engine driver, police, fairy (surprisingly some guy said that) .
Anyways coming back to the current bunch of kids. What makes them different from any other generation of pre-teeners. Parents. To understand the substance of an ambitious pre-teener it is most important to study the change in the approach of the parents. Kids do not know how times have changed. They have only seen the 10 or 15 years that they have lived and all these years have been as competitive as ever for them. And since they are growing it is easier for them to adapt. It’s the parents, who constantly compare today with before, have suddenly experienced the boom in career options, competition, consequences of failure etc. Parents are reading books, blogs, newspapers and watching television. And each of this medium is feeding varied information about how to bring up a child. Parents are therefore experimenting, especially on kids between 10 -15, because it is yet to be determined as to where their talents lie. They are pushing kids to stretch themselves and explore all possibilities. What has not changed is that academic performance is as important as ever. It is still considered as a foundation to a good career. Hence parents put much pressure on their children during exams. On top of this parents today are playing a more participatory than just a supervisory role. They are teaching, preaching, guiding, and directing the kids on every move they make. Result…the kids are not able to explore their life by their own mistakes and learnings, which is very important in this age. This might lead to lack to confidence. They get so caught up in the moment-to-moment issue of will they look smart or dumb, and it blocks them from thinking about the long term.
Earlier the bench mark of success was respect and money. Today, it is also fame, thanks to the numerous reality shows that kids and parents are exposed to. They too play a huge role in molding a kids dream today. The flip side to this is that kids are unwillingly put through dance, singing, cricket and even sudoko classes. This on top of studies is generating tremendous pressure on the kids. Also, since they are dabbling into so many fields they are not able to concentrate on any single stream of expertise. Instead of concentrating 100% on one thing their efforts are divided onto 10 different things. Kids today are dreaming really big but are shortchanging the classic way to pursue a career, practice and dedication, for doing more (parents are unknowingly encouraging this).
To end where we started from…kids today are dreaming big and with the exposure they have it seems possible to attain them too. But like any ambitious toddler, they need to understand that you have to learn to walk before you can run.
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