I'll take Quotable Quotes, Alex...

[Eagleflip]

Me, to one each 15.75 year old daughter:

"Hey there sweetie, we got your private ground school stuff today...you'll like the book!"

Daughter replies, with absolute incredulity in her voice: "You mean I have to READ A BOOK?!?!?"

(Sigh)...to be young again. The adventure continues...

 

[dmspilot00]

I was 15 when I was interested in learning to fly, and picked up a book, and must have read it 20 times before I actually started flying at 16. Maybe she isn't interested.

 

[FlyDeltasJets]

Shoot, I still haven't finished that thing!

 

[eddie]

I was in CFI school before I bothered to learn any of that hard stuff. The flying was too fun to ruin it with studying!

 

[A Squared]

Eagleflip,

It's hard to get a full understanding of your situation from a brief post so I'm not sure if ths is applicable or not, but consider this;

My 2 worst students by far were 2 young girls in thier teens. If I recall correctly, one was 15, one was I think 17. Both had fathers who were pilots, who really really wanted their daughters to fly. Neither had any detectable intrest in flying. Both had absolutely no motivation to do anything but allow their fathers to drop them off at the flight school. It was annoying to them, depressing for me, and a waste of money for their fathers.

I would encourage you to take a really good hard look, and try to be as objective as you can. Is your daughter actually interested? Or are you just so interested yourself that you see what you want to see. If there is appearence of interest, is it genuine, or is it something that is displayed to please you. In an effort to please parents, kids will often profess an interest which doesn't actually exist.

Maybe she is interested, and will get motivated on the reading, maybe not. I'm sure it would be great to have a child share your interest in flying, but I would caution you to be prepared to accept gracefully that she may not.

regards

 

[Eagleflip]

A Squared--

Great post. And you are exactly correct on your warnings.


The good news is that we (the good woman and I) have continuously reiterated that flying is not something our children have to do. They understand.

In fact, my daughter is the one who brought lessons up. In any case, we'll be sure to watch her progress and more importantly, her attitude.

I still think the quote is great... Any other good ones out there?

 

[A Squared]

>>>>>>In fact, my daughter is the one who brought lessons up. In any case, we'll be sure to watch her progress and more importantly, her attitude.

Great, sounds like you and yours are way ahead of me on this. Hope that all goes well and she sees the light about reading ... if not, there's always beatings <g>

 

[FSB99]

some favorite quotes from students in my instructing days:

-what's on the checkride?
-do i really need to know how to do this weight and balance stuff?
-i'd rather not do stalls today. i know what causes them, and i just won't let them happen in real life, so, can we skip those today?
-(after saying, "good job, okay, let's go climb back up, head back to the airport," after conducting a simulated engine failure, and lined up with a good field) oh, you mean, we're not going to land here?

and yes, i think we've all heard the imfamous, "you mean i have to read a book?!"

 

[jarhead]

Eagleflip

Your post brings back some memories. When my own son was about 8 years old, our entire family went to the EAA airshow and convention for the first time, and camped out on the grounds at Oshkosh for 4 straight days. We all enjoyed the outing a great deal. After we returned home, my son could not get enough of aviation related books. I remember going to Hawaii for a week vacation over the Thanksgiving holiday for a week, and my son spent a good part of the week in his room reading the autobiograpy of Chuck Yeager. He decorated his room with model airplanes and posters, and checked library books out on all sorts of aviation topics.

When he turned 14, I took him to an FBO nearby our home, and sent him up for a $20.00 "discovery" ride in a Cessna 152. From there, their was no turning back. He soloed on his 16th birthday, and got his PPL on his 17th birthday....before he had his liscence to drive a car. We got information on college programs that had great credentials, and after high school, he wanted to visit, and check out the program at UND, and fell in love with it.

He graduated in 4 years with a B.S. in airway Science with a 3.6 GPA, and went on to join UND's staff as an employed flight instructor for the University. After 2-1/2 years, and 1300 TT and 350 multi time, he joined Comair, where today, just 16 years after he first soloed in the 152, he is a captain on the CRJ, and a class D flight simulator instructor.

The point to all this, Eagleflip, is that I wanted to point out to you, that it was my son's desire, not mine, that he become a 121 pilot. All I did as a parent, was to support his desire, not mine. If my son had expressed an interest and aptitude in chemical engineering, or investment banking, I would have supported that as well. It is his life, not mine, to spend in his pursuit of a living. I never had any interest at all in flying, until my son prompted me to try a little GA flying.

You may want to sit down with your daughter, and see if you can discern the level of desire she has to pursue aviation, or maybe find out that she has another passion to pursue...........heck, she may want to run for the US Senate some day. One never knows!

Regards,

Jarhead

 

[FSB99]

everybody's giving great advice, and i don't want to sound like i'm bashing anybody here, or lessening the weight we as parents have to guide our children through life, but..... maybe i just read the original post differently, but the point i got from it was a teenager realizing she'd have to actually do some work to achieve a goal!