It is always easier to humour kids, no matter how spectacular or unrealistic their ideas might be when they are younger.  As they get older the expectation is that there needs to be a more grounded and realistic thought process that they take on, especially as they get closer to dedicating time to their passions.  As they become teenagers, tensions start to rise when it comes to how they spend their time, for example, video games or YouTube. 

My oldest uses the excuse of spending his time on those things as preparation for a professional video gamer or YouTuber; I am still not sure if he is being naïve, sarcastic, or completely serious.  You want to be supportive but you also want to provide guidance, it is always a fine line between being condescending and belittling what may be a genuine passion and future endeavor of theirs, to being overtly supportive of unrealistic time-consuming habits that in the end does not benefit them in the future.

Long story short, they will do what they want anyway and find ways to do them – most of which you will never know about.  They will spend even more time and energy hiding them from you, which in turn consumes more of their time.  You don’t have to agree or even understand what they do, but you have to find a way and a compromise that can work for both of you by utilizing their passion. 

For example, my son wanted to be a Korean Pop Music Producer (pretty niche).  So here’s what I asked of him over the last few years utilizing that passion of his:

• Got him a Korean book and asked him to learn Korean online (Duolingo or YouTube) instead of wasting his time with other shows – at least an hour away.  So I am getting my son to learn another language, even if just the basics which will help him later in life regardless.
• Go him a music production 101 book on how to produce music.  So I save on a birthday gift, plus he has to read the book, so an hour of reading time a day is a good trade-off.  It’s also a life skill, learning about a particular industry, even if it doesn’t work out for him, he will have an understanding of starting a business and working on an idea and having it grow.
• Got him to pay for a music app to make his music.  I would like to consider that as an alternative option to paying and forcing him to attend actual music lessons for instruments.  He will still get the benefits (somewhat) of an artistic hobby and an understanding, even at a high level of structuring a musical piece.  I have to admit some of them are hard to listen to, but it’s getting his creative juices going.
• Got him to start a YouTube channel, create his own logo, and promote his musical creations.  If nothing else this will get some of his entrepreneurial and marketing skills going and an understanding, at a limited level, social media and video sharing.  It’s also about production and content creation.
• He’s also looking at collaboration with Korean singers, since he doesn’t speak Korean…yet, and that is all about teamwork and collaboration.
• Eventually he will monetize and learn to copyright some of his work and that is a whole other skill set.
• Each step of the way and for as long as he wants to do this, he has to do something else in return – i.e. continue to get his black belt in Karate no matter how much he tries to quit, and doing other extra chores and classes.  The idea is to not ignore or avoid his passion, as possible as it is I am not convinced he will go on to do this in his adult life.  But since he believes in it so much – why not use it to my benefit and get him to learn about life lessons and skills by using the same thing that could be potentially a waste of time.  Ideally, he goes on and makes a success out of it and enjoys what he is doing.  The way I see it, it is all a win-win.