Parents: Have you caught yourself encouraging your child to participate in something you wouldn't have been caught dead doing at their age?

Nope! I only encouraged my children to participate in
(a) things I thought they would enjoy, or
(b) things I really enjoyed that I thought they would enjoy.

I would never encourage them to do something I didn’t like unless they were interested.

I don’t have any children, but if by “caught dead” you mean “frowned upon by your parents even though you might enjoy it” then I think I would. I’d like to do a lot of things that my own parents would kill me for anyway.

I’m encouraging my son to learn computer coding because he really loved it last year, but isn’t as enthusiastic this time around because the class structure is different. He’s doing amazing with it, but I need to keep encouraging him to continue.

This doesn’t make me a hypocrite. Our children aren’t us. My son is a different person. I would never have thought about computer coding at his age. When I was his age, it was 1979.

I suffered from a lack of confidence as a teenager, so things that I wouldn’t be caught dead doing as a teenager were more because of that than anything intrinsically wrong with the thing. My children often seem to have a lack of confidence also so I try to encourage them to think about how they are feeling and see if it is a lack of confidence or a dislike of the thing, before they decide not to do it. If it is a lack of confidence, I would encourage them to have faith in themselves.

Um… hm…

I take my kid to a playgroup once a week, and to social activities with other kids. I don’t know if I would have done the same as a kid, because I didn’t have the opportunity. I grew up without friends, except for whoever would play with me at recess in elementary school – and that was the only time I saw them.

I encourage my kid to explore, and make mistakes, and get dirty, and have experiences, and learn something new every day.

When he was a toddler I indulged his interest in race cars, even though I think “drive fast and turn left” is about the dumbest concept for a sport anyone could come up with under pressure.

@Seek That’s why true race car aficionados prefer Formula 1/Grand Prix racing.

@Mimishu1995 “Caught dead” is an idiom for “I would die of embarrassment if anyone saw me doing that.” It’s a matter of doing something one feels will make one ostracized for doing. And it changes from one short generation to the next, like taking ROTC or being an altar boy in High School.

@zenvelo – I agree. But the first (and last) time I watched a Formula 1 race with Ian was the one where Dan Wheldon died. After that, he refused to watch another race of any kind unless “Gornon twenny-four!” (Jeff Gordon, his favourite car) was racing.

I still like “drive fast, deploy chute”. One reason is because Shirley Muldowney was the first person to win three Top Fuel championships.

You mean like kissing a boy? :-)

^^ Ew gross!