Very poor take. The author clearly has very limited experience with raising kids. Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them. Playing music, learning to spell correctly, doing mathematics, and so on. A very small minority of kids will do all of that easily and for the fun, but you can't rely on it. If you don't push your kid to do their 20 minutes of piano every day, they will half-ass it and will stop after 1 year and conclude they are not good at music. Same for sport. Same for reading books. Same for maths. And you know what? It's your fault. You chose to be lazy and complacent and didn't push them because it's hard to be a good parent. And now you expect me to validate your laziness? Nah.
The really important thing is to teach kids to find their joy.
At the end of my second year of piano lessons, my teacher took me into her living room, and we listened to Glen Miller records for most of the hour. And then we had a cup of tea, and she told me, "this is the music that I love. I play piano because I love that music, and I want to be able to play it myself. What kind of music do you like?" I didn't really have an answer. So she told me that we should stop doing lessons, but once I found music that I loved, she'd be happy to teach me how to play it.
In my early teens, I discovered Miles Davis. Once I had found my passion, all the hard work became play. I actually ended up learning to play jazz guitar, not piano. Even the heavy lifting was pure joy, because it had purpose and meaning.
I didn't become great at mathematics until I discovered the joy in mathematics (another brilliant teacher handed me a stack of old math contests, and said here, you might find these fun. I placed 4th among 20,000 students).
I didn't learn to write well until I discovered the joy in writings. (An absolutely brilliant English teacher who made us assign ourselves our own grades, but broke his promise in the end by upgrading all my papers to A+'s).
And I gave my kids the room to find their joy as well.
A counter argument is simply the observation that some stuff, it takes time (and effort) before you find the joy in it. Following your recepie, unless (as you say yourself) lucky teacher or wealthy parents, anything that doesn't incite immediate reward will be of low interest. A kid will probably pick up that general pattern too:
if joy can not be found in <T time, don't bother. And kids are not particularly known to be good at long horizon credit assignments, so that T is often hours, day, or maybe a week.
My brother (now an professional artist) told me at teenage years "some stuff you just won't understand the beauty and the joy until you've at least put 100 hours in it". And that's true in so many things in life.
I'm happy that one of my parent forced me to do some stuff (sports, music, language) even when I complained about it. Only 10 years later did I understand how valuable being able to speak another language fluently with minimal accent is, and how some of my fellow second generation migrants lost that ability, and regret it. (having to go to school on Saturday sucked as a kid)
“Joy” is not found in a day. People enjoy doing things they are good at.
It takes a long time to get good at some things and those days suck.
>“Joy” is not found in a day. People enjoy doing things they are good at.
There's got to be more to it than your simplified breakdown.
My first exposure to computer programming was fun and instantly addictive. There was no struggle to learn coding. Same childhood experience for guitar. Nobody was around to push me. There was no need for "discipline to practice". It was simply practice-was-natural-thing-to-do because I enjoyed it. I wasn't a child prodigy. I was finding early joy in programming and guitar -- even though I was very bad at it.
On the other hand, I'm very skilled at cooking and Microsoft Excel. But I do not enjoy making any meals or fiddling with spreadsheets. Likewise, there are a lot of kids out there that hate farming but are actually very good at milking cows and running the tractor because their parents made them do the chores every day. Some kids then grow up to move to the city and leave behind the farm life for good. On the hand, some siblings will cherish farming and happily take over from the parents.
That said, I'm aware of the "No True Scotsman" argument about "joy" : If you _truly_ were skilled at cooking and MS Excel and farming, you'd actually enjoy it.
ok... so the meta question is ..... how does one tell the difference between "skill precedes joy" vs "The beatings will continue until morale improves!" ?
There was a popular "Tiger Mother" book where Amy Chua's daughter has a meltdown in public and didn't want to be forced to play the violin anymore. That finally convinced the mom to stop. On the other hand, the older sister seemed ok with piano lessons. Maybe children are just different.
TLDR of anecdotes above is any theories of optimal child-development has to account for _counterexamples_ to the skill-vs-joy connection : Kids can find joy in things they are bad at. Kids can hate doing things they are good at.
I find tremendous joy in playing the piano today. That mostly started when I was about 20, ~15 years after I started playing the piano.
It had its moments during the first 15 years of my life, but it was more of a competitive activity than an entertaining one. Conservatively, every fun hour had about 50 shitty hours when I was a serious piano student. Now it's 100% fun.
This is exactly the same for me—I grew up playing the piano for basically my entire childhood, but it was always a chore. I dropped it once I went to college and figured I'd never pick it up back up, but then I decided on a whim to learn a song I found online. But b/c now it's no longer just for the sake of lessons, it's become a hobby that I really enjoy in its own right (and indeed, all the forced practice growing up has greatly expanded the range of songs that I'm able to learn now).
Same for me, I've learned programming, reverse engineering, music production, cooking, etc. I learned all these things not because I'm intrinsically in love with doing them, I just love having done them. This quote fits it perfectly, "I hate writing, but I love having written."
> It takes a long time to get good at some things and those days suck.
If those days suck, chances are you won't get good at it. People like things that are engaging and develop their identity and understanding of themselves and the world, even more so than things they are good at.
But kids are going to have setbacks, they will reach a plateau in their craft (music, painting, art, sport, ...). You need also as a good parent to help your kids go through, to not give up, because even joy to do is not always enough. This is the hard part.
From my modest experience of being a ski/snowboard instructor and trying to raise 3 boys (now 12, 16 and 18).
why does a child need to break through a plateau at anything? Of my five sample size of five, expose them and support them, some things can’t even hook you until your brain grows enough .. The musical one is in a band now the nerdy one likes inhaling solder. I did force both boys to Hockey but just to have passable skills so that he can enjoy that all that comes with the sport as an adult
> why does a child need to break through a plateau at anything?
Learning that they can hit a plateau and move beyond it with concerted effort is super important. After you've done it once, you can look back on that experience for inspiration when there's a plateau that you want/need to move beyond.
Having experience with struggling with something that is easy for some others is important too. Some kids are just naturally good at a lot of things when they're younger; which is nice in some ways, but makes it hard to learn skills to deal with challenges... It's great when they find something that challenges them (even if it doesn't seem great to them in the moment). Other kids have a hard time with most things; you've got to look out for things they can be good at.
> why does a child need to break through a plateau at anything?
Exactly! Why? The few things I do better than most people are things I've stayed engaged with during those plateaus because I wanted to, not because someone else told me I should or that it was important. The people who respond positively to being forced into things generally end up not knowing who _they_ are, and end up generally unwell people.
The current trend, at least in Germany, is that as soon as a kid says "I do not want anymore.", this is normal to stop. With that, the kids do not have the experience that it can be hard, but going through can bring something.
Resilience, capacity to go through ups and downs, etc. are things you train by being exposed to it. If your life is only fun and joy as kid, the day you are hit hard as an adult, you have no training.
But, this is my very personal point of view, education is very personal and very context specific, every family is different (country, culture, education, etc.) and in every family education is difficult from one kid to another. I am not trying to tell you how to educate your kids.
> why does a child need to break through a plateau at anything?
If for no other reason than to teach them that some things are worth persevering for.
You can't teach kids to give up at the first sign of adversity...
You're using yourself as a refuting example, but at the end you disqualify yourself by being 4th out of 20000 in some undisclosed math ranking
his whole point was that once he found joy in it, he could excel. I'm confident there's loads of things I could be good at - I'm only good at the things that I enjoy putting effort into.
There are tens of thousands of people who love basketball playing right now and only 300 places in the NBA. Most people are average and never excel at anything, ever. Being 4th out of 20,000 is excelling and the proper response to someone using their own freakishly unrepresentative self as an example for normal people is to point out that they have no idea what it’s like to be normal.
Yeah, but something vital happened: you learned the basics of music theory and how to sight read music - both prerequisites to jazz guitar (and something that most guitarists don’t know). Learning piano is a great way to step into other musical instruments.
This is exactly it.
We fail at teaching a means with no end. Help them find an interesting end and they will achieve it by any means necessary.
Our job as parents is to expose our kids to a wide variety of disciplines so that they can find their interest.
I read that Elon Musk runs his private school this way. The kids narrow their focus quite early on. But of course there's tons of depth to study. So they actually get somewhere.
In your penultimate sentence, why did you put the period outside the parentheses instead of inside?
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I’m not a parent myself, but something I’ve seen happen with an American family I know, is that they push their kids way too much to learn and do as many things as possible. They have their music lessons, their many clubs at school, several physical activities such as soccer, tennis, taekwondo. At some point you have to stop and wonder whether you’re taking their childhood away.
These kids barely have any free time. School during weekdays, activities during the weekend… worse than a full time job.
I think there’s a balance to be struck. Your kids don’t need to be good at everything.
Every parent is fighting an uphill battle against the technology now.
You either structure the day in such a way that there is literally no time for anything outside of activities, or you just observe the kid gets sucked into the screens with less and less will to do anything else.
That is a false dichotomy.
If not at a club/activity, why does the child have unrestricted access to screens?
Have you personally tried to keep a teen away from a screen? If you did with a success, I would really like to hear your story and what has worked for you.
Looking at my kids friends / classmates, almost all of the parents just gave up, with the exception of a small group that is still trying with the discussed approach.
"Keeping teens away from screens"? And why are there screens?
Sugar is addictive. One would not necessarily expect a teen to healthily control their sugar intake; accordingly, we don't put bowls of candy around the house, and if we did we certainly wouldn't be shocked when they emptied themselves, and then thrown up our hands and said "can't keep kids from candy, what can you do?".
Our kids aren't teens yet, but the plan is for screen time to be whitelisted, that is, there are certain times and circumstances where screens are okay and the rest of the time they are not.
EDIT: To elaborate on parenting philosophy a bit, one can provide structure (good) without being authoritarian (bad). Rather than bouncing between "you have all the options available, including screens, hope you make a good choice!" and "you are doing this specific activity now", one can provide unstructured time with lots of options available- reading, board game, doing something outdoors, creating a craft, etc- while having none of those options be screens.
Good luck with that. Please report back on how it goes.
Happy to, how would you like me to contact you? I don't think HN allows replies after threads have been multiple years dead...
Definitely agree though the alternative can quickly become all day spent on TikTok or YouTube shorts.
This. I have several people with kids similar age as mine in my circle, who seemingly gave up and now its all phone, pad or tv at all times. It is very easy to lose that kid to other distractions unless you provide enough of a structure for them.
That was exactly my sentiment.
My parents pushed me hard to do piano when I was around 10-12. After a year that went pretty well I was starting to get lazy and put very little work and investment into preparing for the next lesson. They still had me play piano a full year until they eventually gave up and bitterly told me what a waste my resignation felt to them.
20 years later, I got back to playing piano, and I can't thank my parent enough for having me to continue playing in my teenage years. Because it only took me a few month to be able to play pretty advanced piano sheets compared to some of my relatives who are struggling with the basics starting it in their adulthood.
Same for maths. I feel that a lot of people like the author of this blog post are being extremely misdirected thinking math can and should be taught in a fun or amusing manner every time.
Sure, a lot of topics in Maths can be made more digestible by "gameification" to help younglings develop an intuition. But a very big part of Maths actually requires you to sit down and painstakingly crunch down the numbers/equations, memorize and learn when to apply the correct methods to solve some problems. And even though this part can feel fun and engaging after a while, you can't expect children to exhibit such interest right of the bat without having them first struggle with the classics.
Kids don't know better. Your role as a parent is to navigate along the fine line of forcing your kid to get good exposure to the (boring) activities we adults value and letting him enjoy what he enjoys. Only in doing that will your kid open up to the world and grow up into a functional human being.
"20 years later, I got back to playing piano, and I can't thank my parent enough for having me to continue playing in my teenage years."
One of the tragedies of being young is that few have the insight to realize that the 'boring' stuff parents and teachers are forcing us to learn will actually benefit us and that eventually we'll be very thankful that they did.
My parents nagged me all the time about studying and even though I did my fair share of it I never fully appreciated how important it was until much later.
It's a strange phenomenon, one cognitively understands the reasons but one is isolated from the reality so one is somewhat distant from it. For example, one can get upset watching war footage on TV but being there is on another level altogether (soldiers often do not talk of their experiences because they know those at home will never fully understand).
In the same way, wisdom gained through experience is almost impossible to impart to a younger generation who has no actual experience.
I upvoted all of the above posts because - all of them share some correct arguments.
* Training is hard. * Using your training e.g. a bicycle race is fun. * Training is easier, if you actually know why you’re doing it and recognize some progress.> the 'boring' stuff parents and teachers are forcing us to learn will actually benefit us
My parents forced me to play the piano for more than 10 years because they were obsessed with the piano, and because they had a piano. I hated every second of doing that in order to please them, and I never got higher than beginner level because it was a torture for me. Being a beginner for 10 years should be considered as abuse and it messed me up big time, especially for my daily confidence.
30 years later, I still hate that fucking thing and I understand that they fucked up due to their delusion. They deny everything when we talk about it though.
Sometimes you have to listen to the kids and understand what they want do do, and accept it instead of feeding your Munchausen by proxy syndrome. All I wanted was a computer, even the cheapest computer ever would have been acceptable. Nowadays, I write C++ for a living and I still hate the piano. If only anyone listened to me back then... My hatred for that instrument is a mystery for some people, and some people think that "wisdom gained through experience is almost impossible."
"Sometimes you have to listen to the kids and understand what they want do do, and accept it instead of feeding your Munchausen by proxy syndrome."
I agree, and it's more than 'sometimes', kids have a right to be heard and that hearing should be fair and reasonable. Clearly, in your case it wasn't.
What you experienced was unacceptable by any measure, and in my opinion the fact that your parents were oblivious to your predicament is a damning indictment on their parenting skills.
Your extreme situation isn't what I was referring to, so let me explain by briefly describing what I experienced.
I learned the piano because I wanted to, not because my parents forced me. In fact, whilst my parents were both musical we didn't have a piano when I was young—so I started late and that's been to my disadvantage. I mention that to let you know I understand what you went through.
Whilst I like the piano learning it was no bed of roses and it's difficult for all but the most talented—those fucking Czerny scales used to drive me to distraction, I'd goof off and play whatever took my fancy whenever I could. Also, my teacher used to reprimand me regularly for not reading score timings as written, I'd play the tempo as I felt felt like it and that always casued a ruckus.
At no time did my parents force me to take subjects that I did not like. That said, gentle persuasion was used. I was never much good at languages and despite my ambivalence for the subject I took French not so much at my mother's insistence but rather her desire that I do so (her sister married a Frenchman and was living in France and she thought it would be useful). Learning French used to drive me crazy, it's not that I detested it (I understood its value), rather the problem was that I wasn't much good at the subject. I'd sit on my bed at home doing my French homework and bash my textbook up and down on the bedclothes whilst tying to learn those fucking French nouns with their damn random genders—why the fuck can't they all be 'la' or 'le' and not random? Having a single 'the' in English immanently sensible.
Well, despite being not much good at the subject in hindsight learning French turned out to be a blessing when I was living in Europe. I could never have foreseen that situation when I was at school.
Another example, my father used to nag me about not taking Latin, my usual retort being why the hell would I want to learn a dead language (although that was more in jest at his persistence). I sort of had a paltry excuse as my school didn't teach Latin but there were arrangements to do certain subjects by correspondence under teacher supervision in the library. So I never took the subject at school, so nowadays my Latin is at best a mess.
That was a fucking mistake of the first order on my part for reasons too long to describe here. It's only the wisdom of hindsight that I now know I should have taken my father's advice.
BTW, I understand your frustration over not having access to a computer, I'm an IT professional and managed an IT department for years (I was one of those nerds university security would regularly chuck out of the computer room at 10pm at night). If I'd been in your position, I'd have been mightily pissed off at tour parents' attitude.
> One of the tragedies of being young is that few have the insight to realize that the 'boring' stuff parents and teachers are forcing us to learn will actually benefit us and that eventually we'll be very thankful that they did.
I'm 40. I don't know, perhaps I'm still young.
I did not appreciate having to learn the boring parts. Learning things for the next exam so as to forget them in two weeks... I didn't see the point then and still don't.
I managed to get by with the minimum possible, fluked my CS education, then had a career earning an order of magnitude more than the average salary. Shrug.
Maybe I'm missing something else because of my lack of education? I don't know...
We’re all going to have different paths but I’m certain that flunking CS education and then getting 10x the average salary is not going to be the common case and was probably only possible for a given point in time.
I’m in my late 40s. I left grad school to get a job in VLSI because it was possible to do so in the job market of the 90s. In today’s job market we wouldn’t even pickup the resume of a new college graduate that didn’t have at least a masters. I would’ve been totally passed by today.
Assuming the benefit we’re looking is getting a high paying job of course.
"…perhaps I'm still young."
Possibly so, wisdom often take years to gel and often only after life events force its notions to the fore.
I had way more than usual share of "life events". I threw my career out the window to care for my toddler and dying partner. Then my partner died and I'm left alone raising the kid. What else is going to happen to make me wiser?
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My parents forced me to play piano, right up until I told them that I'll destroy our piano if they don't lay off, and any consequences they could think of would not stop me (I was normally an obedient child, but enough was enough).
That got their attention.
30 years later I picked up classical guitar and loved it! Do I thank my parents for forcing the piano on me? Hell no.
Like I commented in another post, piano gave you the foundation for learning classical guitar (and appreciating that genre of music). Very few guitar players can even recognize note names on a staff. You’re not going to get far with classical guitar without it.
> piano gave you the foundation for learning classical guitar
Absolutely not. If you hate something and don't learn anything more that entry level, it won't give you any foundation, only hatred and bitterness. Also the piano and the guitar are very different beasts that you cannot compare at all.
The piano and the guitar are different in many ways, but they also have some similarities depending on how you play them.
Mechanically, sure, nothing transfers. Rhythm transfers pretty well. An ear for what sounds right would too.
If you're reading printed music, that transfers. A lot of guitar play comes from tabs though, which isn't really transferrable.
If you play chords on the piano and the guitar, and especially if you're thinking about chord progressions, that transfers. But you might play either instrument without a lot of chords.
Lead melody kinds of things can transfer a bit. Especially if you were thinking about how the notes in the melody fit with the chords, even if you didn't play the chords.
Even if you didn't think you were learning music fundamentals, you might have picked up something.
Unless you plan to be a professional musician, why does it matter if you “get far”? Isn’t it supposed to be for fun?
That was ironic understatement. With classical guitar, you won’t really get anywhere without being able to read sheet music. It’s not like rock and pop guitar where you can just learn tabs and slightly develop your ear and that’s enough play along with all your favorite tunes.
If you’ve already picked up reading music for one instrument, it’s a ton easier for the next one.
You need to "get far" enough for it to be fun.
You want to have fun playing along to your favourite song. Or impromptu jam with a friend. Or sing for yourself because a song reminds you of a memory.
They all have a minimum skill requirement, without which it isn't as enjoyable. You need to know to play reasonably well by ear to have fun imo.
Sure, those are definitely fun things to be able to do, but it’s not some kind of essential life skill. If it’s not someone’s thing, why force it? There are plenty of other skills that are also fun to have.
I mean, fair enough. I had an aptitude for it. If you're able to figure out what skills they might have fun with in the future, that's excellent. If not - I'm not sure, you gotta shoot your shot I guess? Because the dislike might be for the process (practice) when they actually would like the end product (jamming)
I just had a kid so this is pretty real to me. How it will go is anybody's guess, but I hope it does go well :)
Congrats!!
I guess I believe more in the Montessori idea that kids are intrinsically motivated to learn and excel, and they will tend to be naturally drawn to work hard at the skills that they are best suited for.
I understand the idea that some skills have a hump to get over and it’s good to encourage that determination, but I’d also guess that for every person like you who is glad they were pushed to learn some particular skill, there is another person who it affected very negatively. So I suppose it’s a bit of a gamble in that sense.
Because eventually you plateau without proper foundations, and that's not fun.
Does it matter if you “plateau” at a hobby? I have lots of hobbies and skills I’ve learned then plateaued at. It doesn’t bother me in the least.
Yes, it’s been very frustrating because there’s things (songs, techniques) that are beyond my reach at the moment due to large gaps.
I get that. It’s satisfying to overcome those hurdles and frustrating to be blocked. Speaking for myself though, if I find I’m getting really frustrated by something that I’m supposedly doing for fun, it’s a sign that I might not be approaching it in the best way psychologically. I’m usually much happier when I try to have more of a zen ‘putting in the reps’ mindset. Then the periods of progress are like icing on the cake, not something I need to enjoy the thing.
> Because eventually you plateau without proper foundations, and that's not fun.
This is a completely alien perspective to most people. Most people never even really try to be good at anything. That you think this quirk of your own psychology is the norm shows a deep disconnect with the mass of mediocre people who don’t care about being competitive because they’re not trying to get highs up on some leaderboard. https://danluu.com/p95-skill/
It's not like learning to sight read is a "piano only" skill...
In fact, I never actually learned to sight read until I started on guitar. All I remembered from the old days was "all cows eat grass"
Learning sight reading is the most natural on piano like instruments. The notes are literally arranged in the same order. Stringed instruments are much more difficult to learn sight reading from scratch on.
Your experience is the antithesis of mine, I wonder why people are so different.
I’m happy that there was overlap between what your parents put in front of you and what you found passion in later in life.
I think that story happens to many but I cannot accept a premise that it is somehow universal.
The passions I found later in life were unrelated to what my parents put in front of me. I suspect that it’s because the activities I eventually found (distance running, volleyball, cooking) were not activities that my parents enjoyed or thought much about.
Moreover, I was unable to develop healthy models of internal motivation until mid life. I didn’t have to when the “why” was covered by my parents.
Childhood should be the lowest risk time in life for people to learn to fail and find the path back to success. This is what I worry about as a parent when I try to set my kids up for future success. I want them to fail now.
I see my role as a parent as coaching them to care about how they spend their time and how to recover from disappointment and failure. If they get that, then learning piano later in life is just work. They won’t be afraid of that.
> I can't thank my parent enough for having me to continue playing in my teenage years.
Counter-example to anyone reading this and thinking about imposing this misery on their child - I absolutely hated piano lessons, and nowadays I absolutely hate that my parents forced me to do it. Total waste of time, even spending more time on Civilization or whatever instead would've been more valuable to me.
> "Because it only took me a few month to be able to play pretty advanced piano sheets compared to some of my relatives who are struggling with the basics starting it in their adulthood."
I don't get it. you'll be a beginner in something that you weren't pushed to in your childhood. so what?
are you planning to only do things you were pushed to as a child? I learnt skiing in mid 30s , never even saw snow as a child. Its my fav thing to do all winter and spent like 40 days a season on snow. Not sure if i would've enjoyed it the same if i was "pushed" skiing as a child and hated it.
Many kids will do difficult stuff, just not the stuff you'd have in mind. Sometimes parents are right in what the kids should be focusing on, but I'd guess more than not they are wrong. For example, all the parents who discouraged heavy computer use or video games, when this is how most millennials came into programming and IT. Then there's the thing where a kid who is interested, obsessed even, learns SO much faster. I recall a story of a parent who wanted their child checked for learning disabilities and the psychologist exclaimed "Your son has memorized 350 Pokemon! It's not a question of learning ability, it's a question of motivation".
In my view, if we let our children do what interests them, to some degree (of course anything taken to the extreme will likely fail, and it depends on the child), they are likely to cover way more territory, and probably more useful territory, than a child that is being forced and coerced. One of the many things my 7 year old has learned from Minecraft is an entire language (English), to a level which in the past (my generation) we didn't reach before perhaps 18 (and that was due to watching TV, not school). The other day I caught him taking notes on a piece of paper that said single = 1, double = 2, triple = 3, quadruple = 4, quintuple = 5, sextuple = 6. This is a child who should not be speaking English, but now he can write and spell it better than his native language, because we let him follow his passion. He's also learned a ton of engineering concepts and vocabulary, and has the ability to install mods, debug when they don't work, has a basic understanding of networking, IP addresses and on and on.
He has no interest in playing an instrument right now, why should we force him? If the time comes and he wants to, he will learn it so much faster because he wants to get better.
This kind of forced practice can create the appearance of a certain level of competence, but it rarely produces a deep understanding or innate appreciation of any of those subjects.
Take music, for example. Many high schoolers play an instrument as part of the college admissions game. Almost none of those kids can play music with their friends and just enjoy it. To them music is this structured activity where they get paper with dots on it, and they have to play the right notes at the right time to pass the class. These kids never develop a true understanding or appreciation for music. They don't keep their instruments or practice as adults.
There's so many things to learn to be good at, why not find something that you actually like?
If the kid isn't enjoying the piano lessons, will forcing them to do it for 20 minutes every day really be beneficial? Sure, they will now be able to do something - something that they absolutely hate... (also, why is it always piano that parents try to force on children?)
> they will now be able to do something - something that they absolutely hate
A valuable life skill if you want to ever have a job or get paid.
Similarly, it teaches the value of putting forth the minimum effort to appear to be doing the work. Putting forth more effort rewards one with more work.
That sucks man. I hope things get better for you.
The sweet is never as sweet without the sour.
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That’s such a depressing way to see things. I’m sure most people do something they don’t utterly despise, is only because they select for their local optimum.
> I’m sure most people
If you live in the bubble where you experience this, congratulation you live a wonderfully privileged life, never interact with anyone or are totally oblivious to the experiences of all the people you interact with on a daily basis.
You're of course right, it's a privilege.
But also, many people choose to do something they hate so they earn more money. They could be just as privileged and choose not to, just so they can compete with the Joneses and consume more...
So your parenting advice is to teach your kids to do things they hate while suppressing their feelings so they can be like the average unhappy person?
I hate doing laundry and cleaning dishes. I still do it, though.
There are things in life that you won't enjoy but you need to do. Learning to do them anyway is in fact a life skill.
I've seen people follow their dreams into careers they chose because they wanted them, despite those careers not being paid well. They're all at least as miserable as the average person, because what they enjoyed is now work, and they don't have money for anything they now enjoy.
"Do whatever makes you happy" is a life plan for the financially independent. Most people simply don't have that luxury.
Parenting, having and raising children, including but not limited to the act of giving birth is the ultimate example. There are many "piano lessons" along that journey.
Sometimes you have to eat a shit sandwich.
Sure, but you don’t have to accept that they’re the only thing on the menu.
Don't know about 'most' but I think many do exactly that in order to pay the bills.
Yep, 6 years of being forced to play the violin.
Sure, once I was playing it, I was fine, but I cannot explain to you the sheer dread I felt opening up the case.
Have not played in decades, despite all those lessons and concerts and orchestra sessions.
Executive function / demand avoidance. Not to the point of being pathological, but it is a learned emotional behavioral complex.
I felt the same. I didn't touch it for ~9 years.
But I'm glad for it, since it lets me jam or enjoy myself without having to put the practice in now from scratch. I do it for fun.
I live in the hope that one day I will pick it up and feel nothing but contentment of being in the moment, but I'm just not ready for that yet.
Even the smell of tree resin sometimes makes my stomach tighten with anxiety.
"something they absolutely hate" is learning to read sheet music, training for skill, practicing for muscle memory.
The fruits are reaped when they (me!) get older. Like I mentioned in another comment, I can play along to a song I like, play a song that is a certain memory, jam with friends at a whim.
Those are not things I necessarily wanted to do when I was a kid. But the "forced" practice was required as a foundation to do what I want to today.
> I can play along to a song I like, play a song that is a certain memory, jam with friends at a whim
You can do any of those things without learning to read music. Ask me how I know
They don't hate it. They dislike being bad at it, they dislike working hard at things, and they like video games and scrolling on their phones.
And yes practicing will result in them getting better.
The primary design goal for most traditional instruments was making them as loud as possible.
I was briefly made to play violin as a child, and I definitely hated it (fortunately my parents recognized this and didn't push too hard). The reason is in retrospect obvious: violins are loud and piercing and played close to the ear. Nobody considered hearing protection back then. I learned recorder as an adult and the loud notes can exceed 100dB(A) measured at the ear (both alto and soprano recorders, and recorders have very limited dynamics). Violins seem to be at least as loud. I would hate to play without hearing protection no matter how skilled I become.
Even in instruments where you can more easily play softly like a piano, the design for loudness can cause suffering. Pianos are much bigger than they need to be now that we have amplification, with correspondingly wide and finger-straining keys. Steel string guitars are louder than nylon but hurt more to play (and even nylon can hurt depending on your individual hand size and shape). I expect there are many children suffering hand/finger pain from being forced to play various instruments and genuinely hating it regardless of their skill level.
When a child hates something, there's often a good reason for it that isn't obvious and that they don't have the communication skills to explain.
I think this is the crux. Nobody likes to fail, kids included. And their attention span is wonky too so they may not see much value in learning from failure/s since there are so many other attractive things asking for their attention and they would rather do them.
Insane you’re getting downvoted, this 100% and then some. There’s a clear difference in outcomes between kids taught self-discipline and those who are raised standard Anglo-American ADHD style once they become adults.
> A very small minority of kids will do all of that easily and for the fun, but you can't rely on it
This may be true, but explain to me what are the returns you get on forcing math (or anything) on kids? They won't like it, they won't learn it intimately, the won't internalize it, it'll be unusable knowledge and mostly a waste of time with lots of bad vibes and probably even a little trauma...
I spent a lot of time with math in high school and college but that was because I had a couple teachers who really elucidated why *I* might find math to be interesting (in my case, it was physics and computing). Forcing people to do anything generally leads to nothing worthwhile.
But should the parent decide if the kid will become a musician? What if its not talented and pushing it with force to mechanically play Mozart? I later became interested in playing bass guitar, nobody forced me. I did it for leisure. Children are and will not be experts in all fields. Sure you are right that some discipline is needed to move forward and to keep up with something. Do you remember and use everything you ever learned in school, if its not needed for your current job? Kids nowadays spent half to 3/4 of the day in school or outside their own home. When should they be kids? I understand the pressure of parents to make sure they have good grades, some is necessary, but not really all of it. I never learned touch type in school. I did that on my own after work within half a year. I did it because i was interested in. Worked 20 years in IT. Now i am currently trying to get my amateur radio license, i use my knowledge that i collected so far, allthough i was bad at math in school. Life is a journey, i got three professions so far.
Different point of view: do you consider hunting in the wilderness to be difficult?
I do, it requires being still in miserable conditions for a long time, being cold, wet, mosquitos, and then usually still no success, but frustration.
But to my knowledge, no savage kid is in need of being forced to learn it.
"children sense your true passions and naturally want to join in"
And that is my experience as well. But if you stop childrens curiosity out of limited time and patience "Be quite now!" - stop them from helping, because they are not a help in the beginning and you are faster on your own - then of course they won't just start enthusiastically some years later doing with motivation whatever it is, you define as their arbitary target now.
Kids tend to want to partake of their own initiative in activities that are 1) physical, and 2) that they see adults themselves do.
Hunting in wilderness is a good example; so are sports, cooking, crafts, etc.
But unfortunately not all important activities that kids need to learn to become well adjusted adults in our modern societies fit those 2 criteria.
Point 2) can be hacked to an extent by modeling the behavior yourself - eg kids who see adults read books are more likely to want to read themselves.
Or staring to smartphone. Then, suddenly, we are surprised why our kids do same.
There is a huge difference between pushing your kids to overcome their current limits and forcing them to do something they do not enjoy at all.
There is indeed a difference between giving a slight push and "forcing" which is what TFA is talking about.
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> But to my knowledge, no savage kid is in need of being forced to learn it
Uhh then your knowledge is very limited because that is rather well documented. Also, why are you saying "savage" like an 18th century racist? Is that in fashion again?
Oh, I am obviously a racist, by glorifying indigineous teaching methods.
But otherwise can you show, where this is documented? The natives tribes where I have some knowledge, don't force their kids to learn in the sense that is talked about here. No need to - the whole culture is about becoming a good hunter (for male individuals). So indeed lots of peer pressure, but no individual forcing.
> Oh, I am obviously a racist, by glorifying indigineous teaching methods.
No, by calling people "savages", a pejorative, based on their ethnicity.
Much like how it would be racist to call people "enslavers" based on their ethnicity, or "cotton pickers" based on their ethnicity.
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> Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them.
I roughly classify parents in two groups: (1) like the author of the article, (2) like you. Based on my limited observation, neither can be claimed to give optimal results, and it more boils down to "see what actually works for your kid in the long term" which unfortunately far too often can only be definitely said in hindsight.
Double-edged sword IMO. I was mandated to a half hour of piano practice early on, and I came to dread it. But in my experience that was less having to do with being pushed to practice, and more I loathed my parents overhearing my piano playing and thinking they'd come down and criticize me for not trying hard enough. This was an uncommon occurrence, but it occurred enough to plant the seeds of anxiety in my mind.
The nature of pushing needs to be considered in the sense of the overall parent-child relationship, and not just being handed a Mikrokosmos and an egg timer. If my parents were more proud of my ability to push forward and took interest in the piano and my playing beyond just performing good at recitals, I probably would have grown up to truly enjoy performing music. Today I'm left with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth that would require conceited effort to overcome. So I guess my parents weren't "lazy" in your terms but a bit too strict for me to conclude I would be "good at music" that early.
Oh yeah let's turn otherwise fun hobbies into a forced chore, that will surely be great for the kid. Forcing kids to learn to spell when they have learning difficulties (eg dyslexia) doesn't usually go well either it's just causing suffering for the kid.
The problem in this discussion is that people here seem to miss that both an excessively authoritarian parenting style is bad but also going full liberal and just letting them run wild is not the solution. Sometimes children need guidance an a gentle push.
Even as a adult I sometimes need to get pushed. I sometimes take guided courses so I don't skip over the hard but important parts of learning a new thing.
Just don't push your children too hard or you do more harm than good. Accept that they are not you and have different interests and needs. Like make them practice an instrument but give them a choice which one. And if after a few years they still hate it, well you tried. Maybe it is not for them.
I think much can be learned from modern American kids sports vs the Soviet youth sports system.
Kids specialize almost immediately now in a sport that is most likely because the parent likes that sport and wants the kid to be good at it.
The Soviet system was the athlete as a kid should try as many different sports as possible until 12 or 13 because you don't know what the kid will have natural talent at for before then.
That is not pushing the kid to practice something they hate but it is also not letting the kid be free to not do anything besides play on the phone.
Kids ultimately like what they are good at. If I had a kid, I feel like my job would be to figure out what they have some talent at and then fan the flames so that talent turns into a passion. I think many parents though are trying to live out their own dreams through the kid, if the kid has talent for the activity or not.
The problem is that it’s extremely difficult for any activity like math, music, or drawing to compete with Minecraft and YouTube shorts.
Kinda yes, but there are some solutions.
I think the most important part is to start early. Make your kids interested in math, music, art, and sport, before they start school. Doesn't have to be anything sophisticated, simple addition and puzzles will do for math, etc. Then you have something you can later build on.
There are also ways to make things funny, including math. Most people say that they hate math, but then they do Sudoku. So, try to make more math like this. Not all math can be transformed to funny puzzles, but after a few the kids will get positive associations with the subject, and will be more willing to learn more.
Doesn’t seem to be an issue for Asian families or ones coming the from former Soviet block as well as Jewish ones. These groups as adults tend to outperform others. There’s a reason for that: early childhood discipline and consistency being built into their cultures.
> Forcing kids to learn to spell when they have learning difficulties (eg dyslexia) doesn't usually go well either it's just causing suffering for the kid.
I greatly valued the tutoring that I received for that (personally wish it had not been cut short). I was somewhat fortunate and received one-on-one tutoring in a secluded room.
They provided me with clearer definition of rules (instead of sayings like "i before e...", proper phonetics, and a history of where English came from.
That said, there's research into trying to determine which children with Dyslexia should receive specialized treatment as a segment just cannot learn to read at all.
I don’t have kids.
The really important part of this is that kids mimic what they see adults they like and respect doing. If their role models spend 6+ hours in front of the television every night, that’s what they’ll do. If their role models are playing music or sport, that’s what they’ll want to do.
Yes, but one of the problems with our civilization is that we typically do the important stuff out of our children's sight, and then come home tired and try to relax. So they do not naturally get a correct idea of what we do.
Yes. Due to an unfortunate event, I'm a single father. My life improved dramatically when I started doing all the chores while the kid was awake:
- We do the chores together.
- Yes it takes ages, but I need to kill the time anyway.
- Then she falls asleep and I can relax.
This is literal heaven, compared to when I played with her the whole day and then did the chores when she slept...
My take is Maths, Science and English push. Everything else let them decide what they like. Do parents push kids at every damn subject?
I think everything else like, drawing, singing, gardening, exercise, meditation could all use a bit more pushing...
Do you do things because someone force you or beacuse you have self motivation?
As an adult, you develop the agency to force yourself to do things you don't like doing
I can tell you as someone who was never forced into any extracurricular activities and was forced to go to church-schools that you probably should force your kids to learn something well (and not send them to religious schools)
You are not forced. You do stuffs you dont like because you racionally evaluate consequences that could probably not worth it if you don't do it. Why cannot we approach same attitude when raising kids?
I spend at least 40 hr a week doing something I have no motivation for. Most people do. Even if you don't hate your job, would you actually do it if you weren't getting paid?
> The author clearly has very limited experience with raising kids. Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them.
Such a bold claim coming from some who does not share their credentials on the matter.
My kid will do everything as long as it is interesting. My sample of 1 contradicts your claim, but neither of us are experts on the matter.
> My kid will do everything as long as it is interesting
Difficult things aren't interesting locally, you have to practice boring things in order to do interesting things in difficult subjects. Some kids do practice boring things if you just ask them, but most do not.
I think you're very very wrong.
Especially in maths, there's not much to practice.
There's stuff to understand. And while this might be exhausting it's not boring and it's a very rewarding process in itself.
Or programming... What's there to practice?
Really. I'd like an example of something that's boring.
My impression is that if you follow the path of discovery and applying things in context, there's nothing that's really boring.
Sample size 3 here and they are all adults and all STEM grads.
You have to push them, but push them right. That's a combination of coercion and encouragement and helping them avoid procrastination. There are hills to climb and they need helping over them to where the good stuff is.
I remember my eldest crying over ratios at the dining table. Then algebra at the kitchen table. Then crying again at real analysis in the pub with me. She graduated with a first in the end.
I'd be interested to hear what she has to say about the experience
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At first I am reluctant to agree. But I decided to take math and English every year. I sucked at math, and had to figure out how to get good on my own. Now I have a degree. Math and music go hand in hand. I hated the music I was learning, so I quit lessons, and got the music I wanted to learn and struggled to learn it and I got muh better. I am an avid reader.
I reluctantly admit that you are right, and I am the better for it because I overcame my lazyness and found joy, in math, English, reading, and music. I sing, play piano, guitar, and listen with appreciation.
Why not anxiety instead of laziness?
So now you have a kid that’s really good at playing piano but absolutely hates doing so. Mission accomplished?
> Most kids won't do difficult things if you don't push them.
I guess it's true for adult humans, and other creatures as well. Instead of pushing, however, you should consider using other motivational methods (a simple prize for accomplishing something that you want from your kids works very well). Pushing can cause alienation and hate, which could affect their entire adult life.
I think many adults don't push themselves because they were always pushed by others their entire lives. It's a form of learned helplessness. You never have a say in what to do, so you just do what you're told, nothing more.
It’s amazing how far the promise of a sticker or special treat will go for young ones.
what does it mean to "push" ?
they used to beat the living shit out of us india when were growing up. is that what you mean?
The world needs less Asian kids being forced to play piano since a very early age and it needs more kids (Asian and not only) that are left to explore the world.
Without that exploration the kids won't make the world their world, at best they'd only make it a bad approximation of what we, our (older) generation, best think that that world should be.
Except they are now, wealthy Chinese are one of the most rapidly growing segment of tourists. Wanna guess what the wealthy successful ones learned as kids? That’s right: piano and math.
Any proof of why it is best?
I prefer to live among educated people, thank you. I prefer my peers to go through forced history lessons, forced math lessons so they don’t tank my government, and biology lessons so they don’t tank the health system. Yes they won’t be able to determine their gender, but that will give me grandkids, thank you very much.
Same goes for piano or sports. Yes we need to pull people upwards, otherwise we’ll all become fat americans.
Forced history lessons are just indoctrination and propaganda, since what you learn is dictated by the government. I wonder if there’s a single country on Earth that teaches e.g. the history of Israel-Palestine conflict in a way that even tries to approach objectivity.
All history lessons are indoctrination at the very least. There's not some "objective history book" where people can just learn "objective history" without zero doubts. Even for things that are taught more or less "objectively", no one alive has firsthand experience of them, unless they are recent. The end result of teaching critical thinking is that you shouldn't trust anyone completely, not yourself, and not your teachers. It's just that adding the layer of government propaganda makes things worse.
I kind of get the both sides of the argument. It kinda feels wrong on one hand. Lots of people agree. The other hand, it kinda, just works. Great. Everyone's hit with down-trend TFR anyway so maybe not it.
> at best they'd only make it a bad approximation of what we, our (older) generation, best think that that world should be.
Also, this part in GP doesn't feel exactly right to me. The problem doesn't seem to be in education, but rather lack of systematic resistance in current systems of society against humans weaponizing the system as tools to hamper progress of humanity as means to win minor inner struggles which is stupid. But the world doesn't seem to be moving in a wrong direction, only slowly.
Asian kids in 80s dreamed of bunches of permanent artificial space habitats running on fusion reactors. Still do. We've only gotten ground based fission reactors and space motor homes since then. But at least we are moving in that direction, just slower than at the ideal rate.
China's just done a humanoid robot marathon event. The winner completed the race. They're definitely in the future. US is, in a state not in line with site guideline to describe. And the latter is supposed to be more correct state than the other? How is that possible?
> Yes they won’t be able to determine their gender, but that will give me grandkids, thank you very much.
All that praise for education and yet you've fallen for the tabloid-fueled conspiracy theory that transgender science is a hoax
What do you mean by "science" in this context? For example, both biology and anthropology are sciences, but biology can tell us that people evolved from apes, while anthropology can tell us that a specific tribe believes that they were created by a flying serpent. Both of them are sciences, both of them can talk about the same topic (the origin of humans), but they take a completely different perspective on the topic.
Is the "transgender science" you talk about more like biology, i.e. describing how things are, or more like anthropology, i.e. describing what some (sub)cultures believe? Those are not the same things.
Biological and cultural/historical. There is rather strong clinical evidence on the healthcare side of things, and an understanding of intersex biology (including how the the brain develops, not just the classically understood intersexes) shows a complex picture of where various components of gender may originate from on a biological level.
But yes, much of what Foucault taught us about the arbitrariness of being a human in a culture does still ring true. No, it doesn't discount the hard evidence from biology and psychology.
Because "forced history lessons" doesn't help said kids understand what history really is about, it just helps them accumulate facts, if that.
I'd say the same thing applies to math, where one can't really start understanding math until said kid is already an adolescent (unless they're a young Euler or something), so it always baffles me when I see parents filling their young kids with (fancy) arithmetics, most probably making said kids future therapy patients, all the while lauding themselves (the parents do, that is) that they're teaching their kids "maths".
Related, one of the best maths teachers I've had (this was back in high-school, in the mid-90s) was very quick to point out that we should forget almost all "maths" we had learned in elementary school, and the he very soon started to explain to us the definition of the real numbers. Or maybe this is just an Eastern-European thing, who knows? Maybe further West they do confuse arithmetics with maths until the Uni' years.
You’ve got it backwards: the future therapy patients are kids who are not taught discipline and persistence. Those who aren’t struggle as adults as the real world is harsh on vibe based living. Also, all those “useless facts” eventually build up on each other. They are prerequisites of knowledge and mastery.
You mention Eastern Europe, are you by chance familiar with the Hejný method of math education in Czechia? Because that introduces some "math beyond mere arithmetics" concepts to the elementary school education.
Sometimes, it is possible to create a less abstract version of a more abstract thing, and thus introduce the seeds of the concept to children much younger. For example, "solve the equation 2x+1=7" is abstract, but "Peter decided to use a # symbol for a specific number, and he didn't tell us which one, but we found in his notes that # + # + 1 = 7; can you figure out which number is # ?" is simple to understand for a very young child, even if the child can only solve it by trial and error.
Kids left to their own devices don't explore the world. They play video games and scroll on social media.
Not if access to those things are limited while providing opportunities for other things that people enjoy.
You don't replace enjoyable things with unenjoyable things and expect the child to become a well-adjusted adult. You give them alternative enjoyable things.
Managing a child's burgeoning dopamine regulation system is a primary function of a parent. Abdicating that function for quick fixes is a form of neglect, in my opinion, just like feeding kids sugary cereals.
If that is the world you are providing, that is the world they will explore.
It is not just me who "provides the world" to my children. Also their classmates, etc. And the internet: even when someone uses it to achieve a purpose, there are various ads and algorithms that try to turn you towards something else.
It appears that no sane parents will allow their kids to extensively explore the world that the modern society is currently providing.
Any patch of woods seem to cast an irresistible call to explore on kids.
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The important part is to start as early as possible and absolutely not trust the school/teacher or kindergarden staff. They are badly programmed to reinforce kids in what comes easy to them and stop encouraging them after less than a handful of attempts.
If you have to restart later, no matter at which point, even up into 'the kids' 20s ( ultra late bloomers, slackers, kids disgusted by most people for reason Z, drug- or "condition X"-induced deadbeats, repressed kids with and without ADHD, failed or successful attempts by psycho-social environments ) understand three things:
1) you are not pushing, even if you are, you are demanding sth for the sake of your child AND yourself. YOU WANT THIS first and foremost. It's not a bad thing, fuck what the little fucker wants.
It's imperative for the kid to know that YOU WANT THIS no matter the obstacles. You want to see the process and result. It's a form of accountability, I guess. Kids pushing back is some dumb implicit way to check how important THEY and THE THING really are to you _or someone else_ (that counts for the ugly stuff, too). It's part of our evolutionary, hard-coded OODA loop.
2) just start at the very beginning, so that it's easy, almost effortless. The kid will be annoyed on most of the difficulty increases, it always depends on the sub-topic so don't back down. Even 20 year olds will catch up with their successful piers within some time. Neuro-genesis is awesome. Most 'grown up' stuff is child's play and a matter of baseline-human character anyway.
3) your stress level is what matters. Stay cool, be equanimous, serene, check your posture, voice, tone, the discussion won't last 5 min and will be worth it.
Absolutely force your kids to do math.
