Given the choice, wouldn't everyone do the bare minimum required so they didn't have to think hard, or struggle or feel any discomfort? I'm sure many other parents remember the first time they had to spend more than one evening studying for a test, or actually did homework, in college or grad school or whenever. It wasn't fun! For me it was so not fun I just never did it.
In an ideal world our kids would have the same expectations that other kids have, they'd be asked to stretch themselves, and supported in doing it, to strive and succeed, and strive and fail. To learn how to work at something. But they're usually not. Resilience and persistence are hugely important in life, and they're what our kids are not getting. That's why smart kids drop out of college and out of life. You have the chance to ask this of your son a few years early. Of course he doesn't want to do it, but he needs to do it.
To make it clear, I'm not talking about pressure cooker stuff, hours of homework and quizzes every week and push push push. I'm talking about appropriate challenge, of him saying "this is stupid, it doesn't make any sense, I can't do it!" and having an adult sit with him and work him through it and come out the other side saying "wow, I thought I couldn't do that, and it didn't feel good at all, but I stuck with it, and now I can do it!". Most kids get that in a normal school right from the get go. Our kids don't.
So, yeah, my opinion is that whether the child wants to be challenged is the least important question. I'm all about the 'soft' skills. And I believe the research supports this POV.
