Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Wishing for the Future...

Our son has been talking about wishing he could "see" his future whenever he's frustrated about not being old enough to do something. Like driving.

Uh, yeah. He's not yet six.

So, he's begun to write books about his fantasy future. Each version gets more detailed.

While I love that he's being creative, I'm not thrilled that he sometimes concentrates upon how his life will be in the future and lamenting it's not "there" yet today.

He's trying to grow up too fast!

What do you say when your child knows what being an adult will bring to their lives, but they are "stuck" in their child years?

Also, we are a Christian family. I've told our son (as has his school) about heaven and how there will be no misery there.

He speaks about wishing to go there.

I've told him God has a lot of learning for him here and He won't be happy to see him come before He's ready for him.

Are there other Christian parents that can tell me what to do at this point?

Our son is very happy with life in general, but he knows it's not perfect.

PERFECT

Hate that word.

What denomination are you? That will guide recommendations.

As a Catholic, I would tell my son that life is an opportunity to show your love and gratitude to God and share His love in the world with others.

ETA: this point might be a nice segue into a discussion of a line from the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come on Earth as it is in heaven". You could discuss what it means to make Earth more "heavenly" through prayer, alms giving, and fasting.

ETA 2: as a Catholic, I'd jump on the opportunity to teach the significance of Mass as a tangible, earthly experience of heaven and God as the sacrifice at Calvary. Scott Hahn has a lovely title, "The Lamb's Supper", which discusses the topic succinctly.

HTH!

Ametrine,

You are doing great.

I would take him to his favorite kid activity (bouncy place, kid's play, meery-go-round, etc..) and at night ask him how much fun he had. And tell him you had fun as a kid as well but you can't do it now because it would look weird. There are things that you can enjoy at the particular age and he should enjoy it. And being adult is not as easy and growing older also means carrying more responsibility. That's why god creates men to grow the rate that we are, etc...

I am not sure what I can tell about heaven. My DD said I have not been to one and I would not know what it is like. And she can't find what heaven looks like in youtube either :-)

We emphasize in our family that God (=love) works through our and other humans' hands; it's up to us to make the world more perfect in the here and now even though we can't get all the way there.

We also do some mindfulness-- look closely at what's around you NOW, rather than planning and worrying excessively about the future, which isn't here yet. We redirect to the "now" when the future stuff gets out of hand.

DeeDee

I can't help with the religion aspect, as that's not a problem in my house, but I can help with the wanting to grow up too fast aspect.

What worked with my DD was extended discussions of how being an adult comes with a lot of freedoms, but a whole lot of responsibilities that end up impacting those freedoms. So, if she's saying we get to go wherever we want because we can drive, I explain how that means we have to pay for the car and insurance, learn the laws, keep up with maintenance, etc, and it's all a lot of work and worry.

My DD got it into her head that adults get to do whatever they want, that they don't have to obey any rules. That led to conversations about the law, law enforcement, the court system, and prison. DD became FASCINATED by the concept of prison, and I have to admit it felt pretty strange to have a 4yo sitting on my lap at the computer, insisting on seeing more images of prison cells, and descriptions of what we're seeing. But it did serve a purpose relative to this conversation, which is that she learned that the consequences of breaking the rules as an adult can be far more severe than anything she's ever experienced.

And on the flip side, there's emphasis on the things she can do as a kid that I can't. Now, I'm not one to pass on jumping on the bouncer just because someone might think I look silly (what's wrong with silly?), but I will pass on jumping on the bed, because I'll break it.

I remember when my son was six. He was happy at that age and often talked about wanting to be an adult. He never really fit in with kids his age and I felt that he was missing out on being a kid.

My son is homeschooled and used to go to church with kids his age, but they made him feel different and he felt judged. The kids there talked a lot about sports that he couldn't play because he was born with a mild disability that caused low endurance and mild muscle weakness and joint pain. When he was about seven one of the church kids asked him why he was so weak and teased him about it. When I asked that my son be allowed to go to a Bible study class with his best friend who was three years older, the teacher didn't like it even though I heard one of the girls in the older class tell the teacher that he was really smart and he would be okay there. He wanted to be in a class where there were good discussions, not a class where he had to do coloring pages and crafts or talk about sports or hunting and skinning deer.

I recently watched a video of him at age 6 with the group of kids who were several years older. They had just memorized a long, difficult Bible verse and they were all on stage reciting it. I remember that we had to ask permission for him to memorize the more difficult Bible verse. He just seemed so happy. A few years later the differences got to him. We gave in to the pressure to put him in class with kids his age and he just didn't fit.

At six he was so talkative and ready to learn and discuss but as he got older he realized that wasn't what people here wanted him to be. Quiet, unquestioning obedience is what was expected. He became quiet around the people at the church and at the ultra religious homeschool group he belonged to. It was the only one in our small town.

He had to wear a painful scoliosis brace for several years and it made sleeping and getting up in time to go to church very difficult. Sitting up for long periods was also difficult so he didn't go to church very often. We felt judged for that. We heard gossip about other people when we went. Our Sunday school teacher talked about rebuking a teenager who was by himself and wearing a hat inside the church. He was visiting for the first time, probably didn't know any better, and never came back. My husband spoke out against that and they don't like it when people disagree with them. Also, the preacher talked about how sinful anxiety was at a time when my mother who had severe brain damage and anxiety as a result of complications of surgery was pulling out her hair. She had been a devout Christian. When she died the church removed us from their mailing list. We tried another church where the preacher preached that if we have pain it is our fault because we "needed to forgive someone" or something like that. My son felt his migraines and scoliosis had nothing to do with anything that he had done. We didn't go back.

We still have facebook friends that go to the churches in our town. They regularly have discussions on facebook about how sinful gay people are. My son, who is not gay but has been called gay because he did musical theater, sees it as a difference that people are born with, just like he was born with a disability. It is no wonder that it was so hard to recruit teenage boys for the musical theater group. Some people here really think boys must be gay if they are doing musical theater. At 14 my son knows that we don't agree with everything the preachers and the church people in our town are saying and he thinks it is hypocritical for us to go there. He doesn't want to be around people who would shun and ridicule people who have a difference of some kind. He doesn't think that is what Christians should be doing.

I feel sad that there is not a youth group in our area where my son could discuss the Bible and ask difficult questions. I enjoyed the church youth group I belonged to as a teen. The isolation is hard, but so is being around people who think so differently and believe that only their opinions are valid.

It won't be that many more years now until my son is an adult. He will be learning to drive a car in a little over a year and thinking about getting a part time job. When I was sixteen I thought I was an adult and I acted like one. I didn't go out and have fun. I wanted it to be different for my son.

At six, he enjoyed the children's musical theater group because it allowed him to play an adult. He also enjoyed role playing games that were for teens when he was six or seven.