DD without fire--part 2

[Ivy's Dad]

A very appropriate phrase is:

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.

My DD started competitive diving when she was 7 yo. At 9 yo, she won the summer league championship meet in the 11U age group. She had significantly more natural talent than any other girl in the league. Unfortunately, she had very little work ethic, and by 11 yo she was no longer even placing in the meets. The girls she used to beat had worked very hard for two years and passed her in ability. Natural talent will only carry a person when they are very young.

My DD has been playing softball for a season now, and so far she enjoys it and has been working hard. At the Nike Softball Camp she attended, she received the "Most Improved" award. Hopefully she'll continue to work hard and improve. As others have said, though, all I can do is provide the opportunity. She has to want to practice and improve. We'll see how it plays itself out.

 

[fosterspoint]

Does she work hard at anything?

My dd tried a lot of things, and was good at a lot of things. I worried that she was having some early success without really working hard. As has been mentioned, hard work will beat out talent if the talent does not work hard.

I kind of pushed her, forced her, talked her into playing on a travel softball team when she was 11. She was not good compared to the other players when she started, it took a full season of practice to get up to their level. She struggled and wanted to quit, but I pushed her to do the opposite, to work a little harder to get up to their level faster. We talked a lot about the work effort and how it is more important than natural ability.

I told her that she could quit softball at the end of the season, but she would have to pick some other thing that would require her to work hard. She has been very close to quitting softball between seasons, but she doesn't have anything else that she wants to do more than softball, so she kept playing.

I think she is starting to get it now that she is 14. She is so excited that she made Varsity as a freshman, of course I took the opportunity to remind her that it was her hard work that made it happen, not her innate ability. She started studying a little more last spring, her grades went up, I praised her for working harder and reminded her that the work was the key to the better grades. She started playing guitar a few months ago, she said something about wanting to practice a lot to get better, so she did practice a lot for a couple months and she got good enough to play a couple of her favorite songs for friends.

It doesn't have to be softball, but kids should work hard at something so that thye know how to do it when they get older. It is good for them to compete and not have success early in something, and then work hard and achieve succes as a result of their work.