Three times in the last hour I have walked into my son David’s bedroom where he was supposed to be deeply engrossed in his studies only to find him feverishly excited about a computer game. This is not an isolated incident, it is a very common occurrence. He needs to study and get good A’level passes for his university admission next year.
With this in mind, I send my hearty congratulations to Sammy Gitau, 35, described as a Kenyan slum child who from the age of 13 was the family breadwinner after his father’s murder. He sold drugs and battled addiction before turning his life around.
However, a chance discovery on a rubbish tip of a Manchester University prospectus transformed his life and, against all odds, he has just graduated from there with an MSc degree in international development project management.
It makes me wonder if our kids have the same hunger and passion to succeed, if it is all too easy for them, that they take education for granted and whether they value the importance of a good education.
David’s brother James is just as nonchalant, telling me on a Friday night that his homework for the weekend has been competed during snatched breaks in school – and he goes to an excellent school.
I do despair, remembering how I loved studying at their age. Is it just a boy thing? Or does a background of hardship give a child extra grit and determination to succeed? I think it does.
Ellee: Forgive me for chuckling at “This is not an isolated incident”!
Well, I’m certainly no authority as a single guy. But I wonder what new interests in public service might be cultivated. I know for myself, I will eventually be looking into Therapeutic Horsemanship clubs for children with Cancer here. BTW: When I click onto your answer, I am directed to a Realtor with your name. Have a good weekend, Ellee!
Michael, I am a bit like a school ma’am. I remember as a little girl, I used to make my own classroom and line up my toys with my sister seated at the back as head girl and I was the teacher dishing out the work. I really enjoyed it. Am I weird? I think I’m just a caring mum who doesn’t want their kids to muck up their lives by spending endless hours on computer games instead of studying. Everything in moderation, as they say.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting on my blog.I read your post with interest, since, as the mother of three boys,I’ve had exactly those thoughts. It’s very frustrating, to say the least.
If my kids spent even a small percentage of the time they spend on the computer (playing) or on their video gaming systems actually doing their homework or their school projects, it would be a different ballgame.
Rotten correspondent, they would end up with first class degrees if they put the same amount of effort in their studies, that’s what I say too. When does the wake up call come? I don’t think girls are as bad as this as far as computer games are concerned, though they might be addicted to social network sites.
It’s a fine line. Hardship can give one the incentive to suceed, but also plunge them into despair.
yes you are caring mum and want the best for your boys. Mine were not allowed to do their homework in the bedroom. Or if some particular reason they really had to the computer was turned off. To me their bedroom is their place to escape to, for relaxing. I had quite a big age gap so it was easier…the youngest one did his first, and then the other.
It think there could be a bit of ‘boy thing’ about it but of course we are generalising. Mums I’ve talked to say their girls like to sit and draw or make things (like mine does) and their boys like computer games or to run about and make a noise (like mine does). Mine likes to do good work but seems to need a push. But my son’s only seven.
Thankfully Sammy Gitau took hold of opportunity with both hands and well done to him.
It may be inconvenient but my daughter idolises Peter Hitchens and wants to be a journalist. This has caused a great deal of effort in learning to read and write (she’s now 5) so I haven’t discouraged her and am constructing a ‘journalists outfit’ for xmas which she’s excited about. Sadly though I’ve had to tell her she can’t send him a xmas card and she can’t understand
My son wants to be a space controller and Q9’s blog inspired thoughts of presents and I’ve sourced one from the Royal Observatory. I think it’s important to foster their goals but I too remind them of the alternative; if they don’t work hard and do well at school they won’t get a good job and have lots of toys, they’ll live in poverty and hardship.
The difference is Sammy Gitau knows what that means.
In an effort to give my son the best possible start I’ve sourced a latin course and will start teaching him Latin at home in the new year. Plus teaching my daughter the times table and supplementing her school work (what’s a noun/verb etc.) and doing a degree myself.
And I don’t think I do enough, I think I could be a better mum, work harder. But other mums marvel at what I do and I marvel at their happy married family. Well done you for giving your children support and an opportunity Ellee, many children don’t have that, it’s up to them to take it..
Anne, that is good, sound advice, It’s not a problem when kids are young to moniter that kind of discipline, but it’s harder when they become teenagers.
Pip, I am in awe of you, I think it would be wonderful to learn Latin, your kids are going to become very accomplished young adults. But I would recommend steering your young daughter’s PH fantasy towards another direction.
Elle, Six of one
half dozen of the other
If you come from nothing, then anything is an achievement – even wiping arses for a living.
If you come from something, then you have a certain level of confidence, that comes from a comfortable life, that no matter what you’ll land on your feet – and survive.
Think about a Doctor from a well to do family who set jim up in a practice with a solid wood desk, doesn’t have the same financial pressures as some ‘wannabee’ with high tuition fees to pay back and having to buy into some overpriced practice in some run down two by two
PS – You cannot wish on your kids to be ‘great’ achievers, or you run the risk of whatever they achieve will never be enough.
Suffice it that they should feel they are achievers (even if that simply means being good a video games) praise them and encourage them to achieve in other areas of their lives (including studies, academia, careers and relationships).
And the first secret any ‘parent’ should learn, is that children are not an extension of you and your ‘desires’ – they are themselves, and the quicker you learn to praise them for being themselves, the better both for you and them.
Of course any parent who can give their children a leg up in life by sending them to a good (better) school, and can support them with university costs, and starting up in business, and setting up home will generally do so both for altruistic & ’selfish’ reasons. Those parents who can and don’t, actually risk pulling their offspring down, rather than toughening or hardening them to any realities of life.
Don’t worry Ellee, she wants to travel the world and have adventures and get paid for writing about them. In fairness he’s very good at that. She wants to be a journalist. As a journalist yourself would you advise against it?
Hi Ellee, my eldest was a teenager. But we didn;t do it to keep an eye on him, but it was good for him to have us around, just in case he needed some help. The son in question is now a highly qualified chef in the Royal Air Force, recently got promoted.
I don’t know what you can do about it Ellee. You can’t seem to force it for that doesn’t work. I had one who always took his schoolwork seriously and one who woke up one day two years before matriculation and decided now was the time to work. Now, at 40, with a PhD degree, she still takes courses for credit for fun.
I hope that your two eventually find a love of learning.
Don’t worry yourself about too much. If they are a bright as you are, they be ok. My two were just the same as yours. I had lots of sleepless nights worrying about what would become of them. Now at 22 one is a nurse, the other, at 21 years of age, manages a team of a couple of dozen people at an international polling firm. Just keep setting a good example and try to encourage them.
I think this was a wonderful story and hope it inspires many more people to want to learn. I don’t remember being hungry to ‘learn’ but I was always hungry to read as a child. Doing a course now, when I’m nearly 50 is wonderful – I’m learning so much because I want to rather than having it forced on me.
We force our boys to sit for 45 minutes an evening and do their homework(Both are 9.)
I dread it … Aargh ! Never has the phrase ‘You can take a horse to water …’ been more apt.
You’re right to worry. Not because you NEED to worry, but because it’s your JOB to worry. I think your boys will be fine and this is partly because you have your foot on the gas – the other reason is that they are obviously bright chaps. Don’t burn yourself out about it and try not to lose sleep. You’re doing your best and that’s all that can be asked of you.
My education went badly wrong at a crucial stage. Remember this though – it can always be put right later in life and a career can be forged well into a person’s thirties nowadays. I know a doctor who took his ‘A’ levels in his twenties.
It becomes much more complicated when they have children of their own and they are in the doldrums -that’s a terrible trap. Otherwise things are easy to put right so long as there’s Mum and Dad to support them when they find they need to go back to school.
You could limit access to computers, PS3 whatever. This might not change anything though. My fixation was my guitar and I became very good at this when I ought to have been learning my differential calculus. They need to be enthused about what they are learning and to be excited that they have the opportunity of a great future if only they’d push for it. What I’d give to swap places.
My problem was that I went to a poor school, the real blame was with me is that I wasn’t interested either and That I had no idea how to manage my study or the massive amount of information required at ‘A’ level. I’d stayed on in sixth form because I was told to “There’s nothing for you outside”. Having scraped 4 ‘O’ levels I really ought not to have stayed on to struggle with ‘A’ levels – I would have been much better off being sent out to learn a trade or joining the army. The teachers conspired to give my parents decent school reports because they were short of pupils and needed me to keep their departments open. Such a waste of my time. My parents had no idea what ‘O’ or ‘A’ levels were and astonishingly they were convinced – until I told then recently aged 40 – that I’d passed (I failed all of my ‘A’levels.) such was the deception.
I’ve been guilt ridden ever since and have studied something or other ever since. I went on to take an ONC in construction, I then took an ‘A’ level in law (aged 30) and then followed that after 4 years of correspondence study with my Chartered Institute of Transport Diploma (the best thing I learned from this was how to touch-type. Not particularly useful study) I also took guitar gradings (7) and my karate black belt. It helps so much to really enjoy what you are learning about.
But back to school – It didn’t help that my school was like a Borstal (4 convicted murderers in the time I was there)but my paradigm was limited in a fairly grotty area and I really didn’t know that my experience was abnormal. I went on a biology field trip aged 18 years and it was there that I mixed with students from a top comprehensive and was completely humiliated by the experience – rather too late.
If my boys ever struggle I will see it as a sign that I need to help them find the right direction for their aptitude. I’d rather they be good plumbers than bad doctors.
Goodness, that was cathartic. Thank you, Ellee.
My 2 boys hate learning.. and i don’t force it on them they will find there way in the end.. and all i want is for them to be happy….They only have me and I don’t want them to think of me as a nagging mum and hate me.
Kevin, I found your comment absolutely fascinating. If only we could turn the clock back, hey? The fact is parents were not into education when we were at school, my father had a minimum education and my Greek mother married at 16 and moved to England, so neither of them motivated me in any way. I always knew when I was at school that I wanted to study European history and foreign languages, I wanted to learn French and Spanish and be really fluent, but it was not available. I could never read enough books, sometimes two a day, and would attend extra evening classes in my favourite subject, English Literature, which I took a year early and passed with a grade A. So I enthused myself the best I could, but would loved to have gone to a better school myself.
Interesting to note the strong parental role you play in your sons’ education today. They do need to have that discipline if they want to succeed, which is why I know they will do brilliantly.
Sally – I too don’t force learning on my children but try to make fun activities a learning experience. We read and discuss things and make up games (I’ll be making them Latin verb bingo for xmas) and visit museums where you can find some great stuff. I’ve heard there’s a fantastic new exhibition at the Science museum.
At the risk of being trite we have become somewhat soft. We need to understand a little bit more about failure. Life is not a steady upward sloping curve. And it’s not just kids that have little grasp of the concept.
Unfortunately it’s all too often a boy thing these days. And that’s potentially tragic.
Aaah, it’s Christmas, Ellee – give them a break!
Hi Ellee how are you this dank and chilly time of year?!?
Do the kids have the same desire to succeed? No! They all want to be halfbaked Big Brother “Celebs” and footballers’ wives!
Also I CURSE nasty Red Ken for giving the yukky younger generation who mostly pile on wailing, screaming making all sorts of kerfuffle to cram the place up for walking-distance journeys on our public buses… give free travel to a more deserving sector of the community Nasty Red Ken. Not brattish schoolkids!
Have a VERY HAPPY FESTIVETIDE
and an ENTERTAINING NEW YEAR!!