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Comment by asdkhadsj | Hacker News Reader

> start giving your kids amazing skills that you think will give them a fulfilling and good life from day one. Well yea, of course.

You'd think "well yea, of course" but man do I feel parents rarely do that. The majority, and I really do think the majority, seem to be content just doing nothing with the most valuable years of the childs life.

Perhaps I take that too seriously, but I don't think so. I feel that is one of our largest failings as a society. That and failing to encourage learning, lessons from past mistakes, self growth, etc etc.

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> just doing nothing with the most valuable years of the childs life

I was pushed pretty hard as a kid and I’m not a very happy adult even though I excelled academically and have a lot of “skills”. All of that pushing made me constantly criticize myself and I still push myself way too hard and feel like I’m never good enough.

As a parent, sometimes I think it’s best to do “nothing” and let my kid enjoy her childhood and do childish things without an enormous amount of pressure to develop all of these skills and “get ahead”. Kids need time to have a carefree life for awhile without adults constantly dumping pressure on them to be prepared for adult life by the time they are five years old.

I definitely agree that having too many "skills" pushed on someone earlier can sometimes lead to self-criticism and other maladaptive behaviors.

I tend to think that parents should present to their children as many different potential things to learn and excel at, but allow the children to drive themselves towards what interests them. Parents can then guide them accordingly. But the child should still feel themselves in control. Sort of like when Tibetan Buddhists find the next Lama- they have the candidate choose an item from the predecessor's possessions.

Present to them a buffet and see what they come back with on their second trip through the line.

I know what my kids would do. They would take nothing but Jello, play with the ice cubes in their water glass for the remainder of their mealtime and then later they will lose their shit because they feel hungry.

I'm not surprised that they would, sounds like what most kids would do. That's why the buffet has to be curated, so that the easiest way out / path of least resistance isn't just "empty calories". So limit the offerings. And maybe use approaches like the Maya Method [0] to "trick" them into thinking what's commonly regarded as work or chores, to be fun. It's not easy, but it can at least be tried.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17905657

As with most things, everything in moderation but your comment reminded me of ‘slow parenting’ and ‘idle parenting’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_parenting

I mean, I had nothing done with me, and it was great. By that I mean my parents did nothing to help me and I grew up entirely unfocused and unparented.

The devil is in the details now isn't it? I didn't mean to portray absolutes, I'm referring to parents who are either too uncaring or too uneducated to actually parent their children.

I'm sad that my desire for parents to parent was downvoted. I'm sure people (like your post) took my comment as a desire to push kids none stop, but I (as a person who grew up poor) am very frustrated by seeing, repeatedly, children (my friends and I mostly) who grew up without parents. It is not ideal.

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