Getting kids interested in the hobby

[keithb7]

Sometimes I wonder if kids today have too many things to take their attention.  Social media. Video Games. You tube. Cell phones. The internet. So many other things prying for their time.  Software that is addictive that draws you in. It's all designed to be that way. I think a kid will just be who he/she is. At an early age you can see their personalities develop. Some jump at every opportunity to go outside and play. Some can't wait to ride their bikes. They love the idea of going just about anywhere with you in a vehicle. Any vehicle. They love cars and trucks and pushing them around in the sandbox.  Other kids want computers and video games all the time.  They don't want toy cars and trucks.  They don't care much to go outside. 

 

Watch your child develop. Pay close attention to what they enjoy.  Encourage them and build upon what they like. Finds creative ways to make the things they like, even more fun.  Honestly my two sons are not a lot  different today in their 20's than when they were 3. My younger boy is into cars. However he's not into wrenching very much. He does what he has to, too keep his little car on the road. I taught them both how to replace brakes. Pull engines. Disassemble engines. Fix drive lines. Etc. They chose university. It is very demanding, for years. They had no time and little interest in repairing cars with the demands of high school, immediately followed by university.  They like my old Mopars. They come for drives with me. I let them drive my old cars.  I think the closest  I am going to get is, my one son says when he "makes it" he's buying a brand new Porsche. Then him and I are driving across North American and back in it.  "A Father & Son road trip of epic proportions", he says. My son and I have been on some long road trips together already. On my dime.  He enjoyed them immensely. As did I.  I really look forward to his planned trip some day. He's working darn hard to live his dream. I believe he'll do it.  He's into cars. Just not at my level, and me being really into old Pre-war mopars.

Edited November 23, 2021 by keithb7 (see edit history)

[trini]

I have 2 boys, now 51 and 56. I tried to push them from grade school age to study what I thought was good for them, to be independent . The older one did what he liked  instead and not what I told him to do ,is now an industrial election. He was asked to teach Tek night school. No way he says . Too much taxes deducted from pay.  He has no children and all his asset willed to his  2 nieces .  He is very good at wood working and that is his hobby. No interest in my old Dodge.

The second one went to University and is a graduate surveyor/ engineer. Never liked it, Ended up being a Hi Tech engineer. Made good money and is semi retired.  The fact is children  have minds of there own. I personally know  people spent 5 years at university and then changed direction.  My old family doctor hobby is wood working. Now retired. 

DOING /WORKING IN WHAT YOU LIKE AND GETTING PAID FOR IT IS A HOBBY

DOING WHAT YOU DO NOT LIKE JUST FOR THE MONEY IS DRUDGERY. Going to work everyday to a job you hate.

You probably heard the statement, YOU CAN TAKE THE HORSE TO THE WATER BUT CANNOT FORCE HIM TO DRINK.

[JACK M]

Great way to put it Trini.

I never kept a job I didn't like.

Owned a few businesses and let them go when they got boring. (wasn't fun anymore).

I have always been a bit ballsy in my endeavors, sometimes paid off sometimes not.

[Guest]

Same here Jack.  Life's too short to stay locked into a job one doesn't enjoy.

My daughter graduated university, magna cum laude, in computer science.  A year into her field she calls me to say "Dad, it's just wretched and depressing."

I told her to quit and find something she likes.  Try a dozen different fields, when you hit the ceiling or get bored with it, move on to another.  She was a little bewildered, and asked if Mom and I wouldn't be disappointed after putting her through 4 years of university?  Of course not!  The education is not wasted. She'll always have the knowledge and, like most parents, her happiness means more to us than anything else.  She went on to open a successful business, her management skills are top notch and she is happy. 

What more could we ask?

Edited November 23, 2021 by GregLaR (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

18 hours ago, trini said:

The older one did what he liked  instead and not what I told him to do ,

My Dad had a kid like that.

 

There was a Facebook thing that said " In three words, what would you say  if you could give advice to yourself at 18 years old".  My advice was "Don't risk changing."

[Gary_Ash]

I don't think I ever saw my father or mother touch a car except to fill it with gas and drive it.  I started with a pedal car at age three, built stuff with my Erector set, Lincoln logs, and the wooden precursors to plastic bricks.  By my teen years, I was building go-karts and my mother even took me to the welding supply place to rent a gas welder when I was about 14.  I was licensed as soon as it was legal, bought my first car at 17, a beat-up 1950 Ford convertible.  I soon learned how to pull the transmission and replace the synchronizer bits, never did figure out why I had to do that about every three weeks.

 

My two adult daughters do many things but have no interest in working on cars or particularly owning an old one.  I have hope for the four grandchildren as they seem to have interests and have been involved.  I taught the oldest grand-daughter, now 24, to MIG weld at age 7, though she hasn't done any in recent years.  I bought a go-kart for them to run around the driveway.  The oldest boy, turned 16 today, has proven to be a speed demon in the kart, has no fear of drifting it around corners at full throttle.  With luck and more involvement, I'll get at least one car nut out of the group.

 

Me at age three in my Pontiac pedal car, my sister in center, a friend on left side.

 

A home built go-kart at age 15.  There were many more, progressively better.

 

Grandson Leo at age nine with my Indy car (just a BIG go-kart).  He just turned 16.

 

Grand-daughter Riley on the go-kart several years ago.

 

 

[f.f.jones]

I have been a car nut since before kindergarten from a family with no automotive interest. I have two sons whom I introduced to the hobby before they could walk. The older one, now pushing 50, and pictured below "helping" with a brake job, never showed the slightest automotive interest (check his expression) and was encouraged to follow whatever else appealed to him. His younger brother's interests included owning and driving a wide variety of vehicles (the last, an EV), but not wrenching. He's now a PhD and a professor of "Transportation Planning" at a prestigious university. That made me happy until he explained that his work was planning "post-automobile people movement" as private cars fade into history. He consults with many municipalities and corporations. His current mode is a bicycle and public transportation.      Go figure!

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by f.f.jones (see edit history)

[rocketraider]

7 hours ago, f.f.jones said:

... That made me happy until he explained that his work was planning "post-automobile people movement" as private cars fade into history. He consults with many municipalities and corporations. His current mode is a bicycle and public transportation.      Go figure!

Long as your brat understands that, outside of urban or other densely populated areas, public transportation is not a viable option for most of us.

 

That's been the big problem all along. Those who beat the drum loudest for mass transit invariably have never lived outside such an area and don't understand that a private vehicle is usually the only option for non-urban folk. Uber don't come way out here in the wilds of Vajenya!

 

Maybe someday he'll see an old car that grabs him by the boo-boo and realize how much pleasure one can be.

[Mark Shaw]

On 11/22/2021 at 10:24 AM, 60FlatTop said:

Nothing like a Willys to get a family to play together.

 

And then there's always the worker bee.

 

 

From about 1969...  I am the guy in shorts tying down the canoe on my 1947 Willys Wagon. 

It was a sleeper with a 389 Pontiac engine under the hood.....

Edited November 25, 2021 by Mark Shaw (see edit history)

[f.f.jones]

3 hours ago, rocketraider said:

outside of urban or other densely populated areas, public transportation is not a viable option for most of us.

MODERATOR: If this is too "political", then give it the axe.

 

I don't disagree with you...

I can't get out of my northern rural driveway on an icy winter morning without studded snow tires, but our urban based and elected lawmakers are hot to ban them due to city road damage they say studs do. Costco and other retailers no longer sell them. Maybe with the help of global warming, I won't need them much longer... I guess I could move South, too.

(I've still got my old-school tire chains!)