Whereas Daughter is very self-motivated, Oldest is a lot more laid back and enjoys life as it comes. Sometimes I wish he’d have a little more “pressing desire” for things, but he is who he is.
One thing that he’s always been is creative. The medium might change, be it crayons and paper, LEGO, or these days, Spore (and all the creation you can do with it). But he’s always creating stuff. So fine… if that’s what you enjoy doing, can we please find some way to channel all that creativity into something productive? The world needs graphic designers, storyboard artists, moviemakers, video game designers, whatever….
I’ve actually pressed him on these things in the past, but I guess it took him to get all obsessed with Spore to have the breakthrough. I mentioned a Wacom tablet in the past, but it was met with a lukewarm reception. Recently I brought it up again, and he thought that would be so cool.
So I just bought a Wacom Bamboo Create. Well, it’s ordered… whenever Amazon gets it here.
Looks like it’ll be a good model for him to get going with, enough features to be meaningfully useful, but it’s not ridiculously expensive. I like that it comes with software like Sketchbook Express, Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter Essentials… sure it’s all basic stuff, but it’s more than ample for him to get going, learn the ropes, and so on. When he gets to the point when those tools are limiting him, then we can go on to the full pro tools. As well, I want to get him Poser and Anime Studio, because I think those will play well into the sorts of things he’ll like to do.
So we’ll see what happens. One step at a time… and geez yes, if the boy gets good enough at it, he’ll be able to get paid for what he loves to do. Hard to beat that. 
Filed under: Family, Technology Tagged: Computers, Family, Kids, Technology
