my fault or the schools

[glenn property of pam]

theres things in life that you take for granted. if the kids go to school then they must be learning something. i could rebuild a motor at the age of 12. i could name all the parts way before that. my 16 year old son is smart as a button and great on computers but hes thick as 2 short planks when it comes to engines.

we just bought him a 05 dodge neon my wife says its a bit uneven on tick over so it might need a tune up. so i get a can off seafoam a set of plugs and tell my son to come help.
"son put the seafoam in the gas tank and dont spill it".
son "dad it wont go in" me " use a funnel to push the flap out of the way"
.......urrrrrr.....watching him push the flap with the funnel and try to pour the seafoam down the gap beside the funnel. son " ok whats next....yawn"
me " time to put plugs in"
son confussed look" do i just drop them in"
me "do what?"
son " do i just drop them in or does the white bit go first"
me " are u kidding me"
son " hur"
me " seriously do you think the plugs go in the gas tank"
son " i dont know"
me " what do they teach you in school"
son "nothing"
me " son the plugs go under the hood"
son "is this going to take long"
me "no son go back to what you was doing i got it........"

so is this my fault or the educational system

 

[NYBo]

Re: my fault or the schools

Neither. If he had the interest, he would have been watching you from an early age. My father barely knew which end of a screwdriver to hold, so I got a job in a gas station and watched and listened as the mechanics did their thing. I've been doing almost all my own wrenching for almost 40 years now. But it started with an interest in the subject.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: my fault or the schools

It is just a differing of interests.......... no need to get upset.

There are things children excel in that we have no knowledge or interest.

 

[Summer Fun]

Re: my fault or the schools

Not every kid is meant to be a grease monkey.

 

[R Socey]

Re: my fault or the schools

It's the new generation! They think if it's not fun it's not worth doing.

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: my fault or the schools

thanks guys. i dont want him to be a grease monkey or a electrician like me but i also dont want to see him ripped off every time he has a small problem with anything thats not fixable from a keyboard.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: my fault or the schools

I imagine your Son could show you a few computer tricks if you were interested

 

[tpenfield]

Re: my fault or the schools

This is 'no fault' . . . everybody has their own interests and skills that they gravitate towards and learn over their life times. The important thing is to have interests and develop skills.

 

[southkogs]

Re: my fault or the schools

Nothing wrong with being a grease monkey or electrician ... but nothing wrong with being a computer tech either. They keep each other in business often.

In my own case, the rule was if you wanna' drive it ... you're gonna' maintain it, or pay to have it maintained. I couldn't afford the latter, so I learned to turn a wrench. Nowadays, I split it up a little more - but I try doing a fair bit of my own stuff.

He probably needs to do a little more than he is doing (if he wants to drive), but doesn't necessarily need to drink 10w 40 for breakfast.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: my fault or the schools

Ugh, I feel your pain bud, my 19 yr old son(step son actually but to me he is my son) really couldn't care less about anything but video games and smoking dope, drives me nuts but at some point all I can hope for is he figures it out. My three daughters though are doing very well two in college and one in High School in AP classes and on the cheerleading squad so while I know the difference they have to have the desire and drive to be successful, I'm just not sure how a child figures that out, maybe its girls I don't know!!

By contrast my Cousins 4 yr old son(not his biological son but at 4 years old Jay has no idea) never leaves my side, if I am under a car or helping his family move he never leaves my side, his mother and father never should have had children they are among the most dysfunctional family I have ever seen first hand in my life, Jayden(the 4 yr old) openly favors me in front of his dad and mom, accepts my discipline over theirs and eagerly does what he is told(by me) knowing I will reward him with more attention and love then his parents do, last night I was taking him to his dads house and he asked me if there would be any yelling. I tried talking to my cousin and he simply said Jay's not my son, how freaking sad, I almost knocked my cousin on his backside.

Be the best father you can glen there aren't enough of us out there, I found out I have a D-Bag in my family but I feel fine being a father to his kids since he has no idea and doesn't care to learn from one who's most important mission in life is to be a better Father. He would rather work on a POS car then be a dad, and his children are nothing more then a little person that just gets in his way.

Last night I taught Jayden how to eat sunflower seeds, NO HANDS!! How cool is that!

 

[Fly Rod]

Re: my fault or the schools

some kids just R not mechanically inclined as some adults too.... your son is 16 have U ever had him try to help U when he /she was 10 years old?....seems like while U were out cutting the grass he was on the computer.... nothing wrong with that... maybe he will be a tech geek

 

[puddle jumper]

Re: my fault or the schools

theres things in life that you take for granted. if the kids go to school then they must be learning something. i could rebuild a motor at the age of 12. i could name all the parts way before that. my 16 year old son is smart as a button and great on computers but hes thick as 2 short planks when it comes to engines.

we just bought him a 05 dodge neon my wife says its a bit uneven on tick over so it might need a tune up. so i get a can off seafoam a set of plugs and tell my son to come help.
"son put the seafoam in the gas tank and don't spill it".
son "dad it wont go in" me " use a funnel to push the flap out of the way"
.......urrrrrr.....watching him push the flap with the funnel and try to pour the seafoam down the gap beside the funnel. son " ok whats next....yawn"
me " time to put plugs in"
son confused look" do i just drop them in"
me "do what?"
son " do i just drop them in or does the white bit go first"
me " are u kidding me"
son " hur"
me " seriously do you think the plugs go in the gas tank"
son " i don't know"
me " what do they teach you in school"
son "nothing"
me " son the plugs go under the hood"
son "is this going to take long"
me "no son go back to what you was doing i got it........"

so is this my fault or the educational system

You just had the exact conversation I have with my son all the time. Even your comment about your wife saying it needs a tune up sounded just like my wife.

We are all chuckling over brecky on how much that just sunded like us.:facepalm:

 

[sschefer]

Re: my fault or the schools

Who took the time to explain it to you? Patience sometimes provides a wealth of rewards.

Maybe, if he's into computers you could use that to your advantage. Let him know that the cars today are running on computers and that in order to understand what the computer needs to do you need to know the car. That might spark his interest. Who knows, you might just end up with a GM engineer.

 

[rbh]

Re: my fault or the schools

Just a sighn of the times, computers are the hot rods of today.

 

[rivermouse]

Re: my fault or the schools

Just a sighn of the times, computers are the hot rods of today.

Its also is a sign that MANY 16 year olds dont need to drive or be near a car....Let them travel through the internet until they can understand what a car is. I would give him a copy of the repair service manual for the car and require him to read it at least 2 times real slow. This would be a start amd maybe come in handy because this model has many owner complaints and someone may be opening the hood and doing it often im afraid.

 

[Fishing Dude too]

Re: my fault or the schools

Your fault unless he is in auto shop at school. They don't teach those things in normal classes, started out with my son working on mowers so he would have a clue.

 

[puddle jumper]

Re: my fault or the schools

Just a sighn of the times, computers are the hot rods of today.

Think about it and they realy are. The other thing is newer cars can be very hard to fix and most people cant do it.

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: my fault or the schools

i guess i am lucky hes a good kid and my wife made me agree that i wouldnt force my likes or dislikes on him. i tryed the father son projects including everything from swamp buggys to building a killer gaming pc but he likes to use items and has no intrest in making something. i thought that school would have taught him the physics of a 4 stroke motor at the very least. i still make the effort to play on line games and stuff but by the time i get the idea of what to do hes beaten it and ready to start a diffrent game. it might just be that hes use to handing me stuff and saying its broke or hes real cleaver and has worked out that if you act dumb then dad will do all the work.....lol thanks for you input guys

 

[Flynny]

Re: my fault or the schools

I've had the same conversation with my friends who think I'm crazy for liking engines and getting my hands dirty and caring about my car and boat so much. Their only serious interest or hobby is school. It's boring, really. I'm 17 if you haven't guessed.

One of the most recent interesting debates has been driving for fun versus driving because it's practical. None of them understood that driving can be fun. (Until I took some of them to do donuts and drift a little... ).

My high school got rid of the machine shop, the auto-shop, and the wood shop classes and sold all the equipment 5-10 years ago and then recently converted the rooms into kindergarten areas. Now high-school students aren't allowed in that part of the school. It's ridiculous.

So to answer your question, it's no one's fault. I have no idea why I like mechanics and computers. My school certainly didn't introduce either to me. And my parents are naturalists so it didn't come from them.

On the other hand, I'm typing this on a custom gaming machine. So I guess have the mechanic and the computer geek going for me.

 

[tomdinwv]

Re: my fault or the schools

A few weeks ago I needed to pull the outdrive off my boat. My sons happened to be here so I recruited the oldest (12) to help me. I learned to work on things by watching and helping my dad. The only part of that I didn't like was I hardly ever got to pick up a tool so I would get bored. I decided that I would do it a little different with Dylan, and let him actually do some of the work besides just being a gopher. I pulled the first 3 nuts on the OD and let him take the rest lose and do some other stuff. He seemed to enjoy working on the boat. He's like many kids out there and mostly wants to play video games or play his guitar til his fingers bleed but I've noticed over the last year or so, he seems to like helping me when I'm working on something. I just hope this trend continues.