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My eight-year-old is passionate about dinosaurs in particular and paleontology in general. Has been since he was one. Although he likes other things, he never gets tired of the subject. He has lots (LOTS) of dinosaur books, toys, documentaries, etc.

Will he become a paleontologist? He talks about it, but I don't know. He's only eight, and he might discover...I don't know, forestry or architecture. That's okay.

The existence of passion RIGHT NOW isn't something I worry about in my kids, mostly because I think it has to come from them, and them alone. Extremely high levels of passion at a very young age are probably rare like high IQs are rare, and I can't force it in there. People who have a drive to play the flute or paint have a gift of passion (and presumably some talent) the same way that cognitively gifted kids have something that drives them to learn. I can't force either attribute into my kids. It's there or it isn't. I can nurture it, but I can't create it.

That said, I'm aware that adults can squelch passion through cluelessness (think schools that squelch love of learning in our kids) or begrudgery or whatever. So I just worry about damaging it in my kids. This means I've learned not to push them too much in an area they love.

I remind myself that passion comes from the inside and let my kids develop their interests as they see fit. I see my job as being to expose them to many things, and to guide them if they ask for help.

So I guess my goal is to raise children who'll become happy, productive adults. I need to give them the tools to be able to make the decision, "What do I want to achieve and how can I achieve it?" effectively. Part of this involves not pushing them to become super-achievers at a young age if this isn't what they want. If that happens fine, if not, great. Achieving a lot at a very young age comes with its own perils, and my kids have their whole lives to become highly successful at something, if that's what they decide they want to be. Does this make sense?

HTH,

Val