Thank you for all the support. It was really good to hear your stories.
And thanks for your perspective Val. But if I only let her do what motivated her, hands would not be washed very often, rooms would be very messy and cheezits her main course.
And what really worries me about that motivation attitude: it was similar to my parents. And in my limited sample, including myself, kids like that found out that partying motivated them.
She had a ballet recital yesterday and the teacher has this core group called the "company". The kids start in about 4th grade. They get to perform a lot in this last recital with all the young kids. I noticed they were very sloppy dancers, with their arm and feet positions. Last night I asked her: "you said you wanted to try out with the NYC ballet school next year. If you perform with them, you might do a lot of performances of the Nutcracker but have a very small role but you have to do it really well. I notice that Miss Parsla's company gets to perform a lot but this one show. But they are kind of sloppy dancers. Which do you want to do? This big performance, but sloppy, or a little performance and do it really well? She chose the latter. Which I took as a good sign.
I also think the quality shows up in just certain things, like piano or ballet. You can't tell the quality of math problem solving. The kid knows it or doesn't. And motivation to learn about something doesn't have a quality grade. You cannot say he did that sloppily when they are 5. (Now I will be bombarded with posts that say their 4 year old creates a research outline.)
But I think the gist of point is there.
Ren
