<Perhaps he would have found out that learning his job, his success and his joy.>
I'm not sure what that sentence is supposed to say.
You asked what would happen if you didn't stand over him and force him to learn. My suggestion is that he may have found out that his learning belongs to him. It isn't something he gets because it is imposed on him. It is one of life's greatest joys and he owns it just like he owns the success he gets as a result of it. Ultimately we have our kids for but a small fraction of their lives. Forcing learning on a kid is a pretty short term solution and not a good substitute for the child developing their internal resources.
<Seems what he's learned from the current system is that ultimately it is your responsibility not his.>
I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion without talking with my son.
The conclusion was drawn based on your comment in your earlier post. " If he has trouble at the beginning of a learning process, he still, at age 11, tends to give up. I don't let him. So just yesterday, we had a scene at the piano that was similar to the one in Chua's article (though shorter and less intense)." When he tends to "give up" and requires you to step in and have a "scene" that doesn't scream that he's taking personal responsibility for his own learning - quite the opposite.
Learning how to tackle a difficult task is, for a perfectionist, partly a result of force.
How do you explain the fact that there are perfectionist kids who aren't forced and who end up taking on challenges and learning. You give yourself credit for setting up this process, but how do you know how different it might look if you'd not used force. We never used force with our perfectionist and he's self motivated and will tackle anything. How do you explain that?
Sorry to disappoint you, but because of the process I started years ago, I don't have to 'stand over him' much at all anymore.
I'm not disappointed at all. That is different than what you said in your earlier post but it is great. It does seem to me again though that you are giving yourself quite a lot of responsibility and credit for his learning.
Near the end of the process, I was getting fed up and about to give up, when he looked up, in tears, and said, 'Don't stop -- I like it when you make me do things.' I was floored.
Yes, we are coming to this from very, very different places. In that situation I would feel I had really failed my kid. To hear a kid say he perceives himself as so incapable that people have to threaten him to make him learn is a very sad thing to me. I know my kid isn't going to be in a shipwreck or in the Olympics tomorrow. If he needs more days at the pool to get there - that's okay, it'll happen. Pain, fear, humiliation, threats - none of those are necessary for a parent to teach a child. As a parent I want to know as my child goes through life he believes he can learn and he can tackle new situations. That's really different than believing he's the kind of person who needs to be threatened to learn and that his mom is the kind of person who so prioritizing him acquiring new skills that she's willing to threaten him.
