Youth Low Ambition
Low ambition is a symptom.
Look at a child at any restaurant. What do you see?
The glow of a screen lighting up a face overflowing with low ambition, low curiosity, and low energy.
Low ambition is a plague and the cause is extremely high exposure to social media influencers, professional athletes, video gamers, actors, and…
Wait for it…
…schools that discourage exposure to the real world.
Like a dirty needle to an infection, screens are the vector for the transmission of low goals. However, the immune response of kids is weakened by the routine avoidance of controversial politics, books, and current events in school. Even more so now as a flood of “dangerous” books are being removed from school libraries. (I’ve got my eye on you, J.K. Rowling).
Learning in school is becoming utterly void of life’s complexities, challenges, and beauty. This leaves kids in a bubble of shallow ambition.
Where do Goals Come From
All goals emerge from experience. For most youth, that experience is primarily watching others on screens, studying dry lessons, and regurgitation.
Passive.
But parents can serve as an antidote if they:
- Limit and curate screen exposure,
- Intentionally expand “broadening experiences.”
Broadening not Narrowing
Broadening Experiences means intentionally discussing banned books, divisive politics, and wrestling with harsh headlines over the kitchen table.
Right now, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is flaring. This is the moment to discuss it in ridiculous detail. Start here. Look at it from several sides. Like this. Search for one-sided perspectives and debate. Imagine life for those involved.
This is real life. This is messy. But this is learning and it will not get oxygen in your child’s school.
The New Parent Job
The new (and traditional) job of caring parents: Expand your child’s experiences… even if they don’t want to. And do not expect that their school will cover anything more than the pre-determined curriculum and the upcoming standardized test.
Do this, and you’ll see your child’s ambitions grow. You’ll see their interests grow. You’ll see them begin to love the messy, complicated, internally-driven, non-linear thing we call “learning.” Everything else is waste.
