I liked your talk. One thing though, while quitting isn't failure, it also isn't always success. I have found from my own experience that sometimes when I or my kids want to quit, it's because we've either plateaued (bored, not making progress in skill) or hit a wall in the learning process (it's gotten harder) and we don't realize that this is why we want to quit. It isn't necessarily losing interest. Music lessons is a classic example. When I was around 8 years old, I was taking piano lessons. Even though I was good at piano, I didn't like to practice, I'd rather read a book in the tree in our front yard. My mother got tired of making me practice. She quit. My parents stopped paying for lessons. I don't think I cared as much when I was little, but when I reached my teen and adult years, I regretted not continuing the lessons. Instead of just letting the kids quit, talk it over with them and see if they can figure out why they want to quit. They may find their enthusiasm returning if they understand the why, and see there is a way past the plateau or wall.
Absolutely, have conversations about why they think they're thinking they want to quit. You may find that tweaking it might meet the need they're experiencing (say, going less often or trying different teacher etc.). Quitting is their proposed solution to meeting a new need that's arisen for them and it's helpful to process that with us (talk about it) to see what other possibilities there may be, or to get more clear that quitting is the best path forward for them, at least for now. As for your regret over piano lessons, that's your learning. You can take piano lessons any time you want to. If you don't have time for that now, well, if you continued the lessons maybe your regret now would be that you don't have time to play. If you think you'd be playing, then use that time for lessons. It's such an interesting thing to peel back the layers around. But you don't need to put your feelings around that onto your child's experiences. And our goal as parents isn't to make sure our children never experience regret. It's part of learning about the richness of choices. But we can have conversations with them when they're considering quitting something they've enjoyed in the past so they more deeply understand what's up for them right now and why they want to make this choice. That can help alleviate future regret because they made the best choice they could at the time. And they made the choice, not their parent for them.
I disagree. You wanted to quit then and did better reading in a tree. If later you thought you would like to learn piano - well why not start learning again? Instead of “regretting” a “past failure”? You have negativised Your young self’s instincts, but I imagine have been inculcated by the systems in place, so have not imagined simply learning now, as an adult. What a fine example that wound be to your children!
I liked your talk. One thing though, while quitting isn't failure, it also isn't always success. I have found from my own experience that sometimes when I or my kids want to quit, it's because we've either plateaued (bored, not making progress in skill) or hit a wall in the learning process (it's gotten harder) and we don't realize that this is why we want to quit. It isn't necessarily losing interest. Music lessons is a classic example. When I was around 8 years old, I was taking piano lessons. Even though I was good at piano, I didn't like to practice, I'd rather read a book in the tree in our front yard. My mother got tired of making me practice. She quit. My parents stopped paying for lessons. I don't think I cared as much when I was little, but when I reached my teen and adult years, I regretted not continuing the lessons. Instead of just letting the kids quit, talk it over with them and see if they can figure out why they want to quit. They may find their enthusiasm returning if they understand the why, and see there is a way past the plateau or wall.
Absolutely, have conversations about why they think they're thinking they want to quit. You may find that tweaking it might meet the need they're experiencing (say, going less often or trying different teacher etc.). Quitting is their proposed solution to meeting a new need that's arisen for them and it's helpful to process that with us (talk about it) to see what other possibilities there may be, or to get more clear that quitting is the best path forward for them, at least for now.
As for your regret over piano lessons, that's your learning. You can take piano lessons any time you want to. If you don't have time for that now, well, if you continued the lessons maybe your regret now would be that you don't have time to play. If you think you'd be playing, then use that time for lessons. It's such an interesting thing to peel back the layers around.
But you don't need to put your feelings around that onto your child's experiences. And our goal as parents isn't to make sure our children never experience regret. It's part of learning about the richness of choices. But we can have conversations with them when they're considering quitting something they've enjoyed in the past so they more deeply understand what's up for them right now and why they want to make this choice. That can help alleviate future regret because they made the best choice they could at the time. And they made the choice, not their parent for them.
I disagree. You wanted to quit then and did better reading in a tree. If later you thought you would like to learn piano - well why not start learning again? Instead of “regretting” a “past failure”? You have negativised
Your young self’s instincts, but I imagine have been inculcated by the systems in place, so have not imagined simply learning now, as an adult. What a fine example that wound be to your children!