Dear Texas,
I'm sure I will get jumped for my reply, but I don't give a rip.
Let me share a story...
My brother, in addition to being an exceptional student, won the junior olympics in wrestling and went to Japan and won a world tournament (all during his high school career). Needless to say he had many full scholarship offers and an appointment to the Naval Academy. My father, being the ever practical parent, offered to buy my brother a car his junior year if he took one of the full scholarships and offered to buy him any car he wanted junior year if he took the appointment to the Naval Academy. My brother chose the USNA, and junior year he brought back a Porche 911 Carerra from Germany. He graduated and has lead a good and prosperous life. He has since given the car back to my dad as a thank you.
When my son was seven, we visited grandpa, and my son was flabbergasted with the cool car grandpa owned. He asked grandpa where he got it, and not only did grandpa relay the story, but he offered my seven year old the same deal! From that day forward, my son knew (not just thought or hoped) that he would go to one of the academies. He spoke of it often, wrote school papers about it, told his friends about it. It opened the door for numerous lengthy conversations through the years about what it takes to get in, and what it means to attend. As he got older, he learned many other reasons for attending...reasons that eclipsed owning a cool car. Bottom line is this: my son's goal effected many many decisions he made throughout his life. Those "good" decisions lead to him being appointed to USAFA. He could have changed his mind any time along the way and it would have been fine with me, but I did support his goals. I did use his goals to remind him many times of the importance of making wise choices. I used my own form of bribery many times (all through middle school and high school, if he received straight A's, he could wear his hair any way he chose). At times it was painful to stick to my word (several boxes of hair color and a few years of not seeing his eyeballs).
There's not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful to my dad for making that deal with my son all those years ago. There's not a high school teacher of my son's that wont tell you what a mature attitude he had about his schoolwork. There's not an administrator in his middle or high school that wont tell you that it was his focus that kept him out of trouble and made him stick out as a leader.
The decision does have to be your child's. But its our god given duty as parents to raise the best children we can raise. Use every tool you have at your disposal. Find their hot button, and make them a deal, and stick to your word, not matter how painful either way. Some will call it bribery, but it teaches delayed gratification. It teaches the benefits of working towards a goal. Regardless of their ultimate decision, they will be better served having a goal. The goal may change several times as they grow up...for my son it did not.
Moral of the story: It has to be their choice...bit it's never too early to have a goal.