[bobbin]

> It's important to teach your children that there are times when they need to focus on things that don't necessarily interest them

Why do you need to teach them that? life does that when you pursue something you are interested in. Whenever I want to achieve something there are things I don't want to do that are necessary to do what I want.

[bmj]

But if a child is never exposed to work (that is, focusing on things that don't necessarily interest them rather than simply floating between things they find fun), he may not be equipped to make the proper decisions later in life.

Don't misinterpret what I'm saying--I'm not suggesting that children are simply forced to learn things, especially without any sort of context. I am suggesting that sometimes children needed to be nudged to get over the "I don't want to think hard about this" hump. We've seen this in our own kids. Our older son didn't particular like to put forth the effort to read himself, but we asked him to do it just a bit each day, and quickly he realized this opened up a whole world of stuff that he could do on his own.

[olliesaunders]

I completely agree with this. Just cultivate an attitude of ambition in them. The environment will show them what skills are necessary to achieve their ambitions. I don't believe you should teach anything without demonstrating it's use; the environment does this more effectively than any teacher can.