One last post and I am off to my laundry room...

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One thing I struggle with is knowing when to push. If I am certain my child is capable of doing more but he isn't interested in doing more, then do I push?? I don't because I don't want the conflict from pushing when there is no interest. But, sometimes you do have to push because they do have to do things they don't always like doing. This is the part that I think is difficult. Knowing when to push and when to back off.

We are past that stage here. Music helped.
When my kids were younger, I used to reward them for practicing on their violins. Any Suzuki parent out there knows what I am talking about. You are on you knees in front of your 4 year old, pretending that you love that scratching sound that is supposed to be Bach's minuet. You give them M&M or a penny for each piece they play. Thankfully practice time at that level is only about 15/20 min a day. But your kid is learning that practice is needed in order to progress. Athletes don't have a problem with this either, but when it comes to practicing academics it is suddenly a "poor child with a pushy parent".
My S hapens to be quite good at math. He likes competitions. He needs to practice in order to become better. Does he like math - yes, but practicing tediously? - he would rather play a computer game. He is old enough to know that practice is making him better, but is not mature enough yet to see a good placement in a competition as his only reward. So we reward him for practicing. Ghost does a lot of math. Two math circles - one easier, one very challenging. When the one close to our house opened, he still wanted to stick with the tough one , that is one hour away. I drive him there once a week. He works on Algebra II independently at school during math class. Assigns himslef homework. He takes a challenging class at AoPS. No reward for that, and he wants to continue.
AoPS posts weekly practice problems. And that is where bribing comes into play. We pay him $1 per problem. Sometimes he gets it after 5 minutes, sometimes he spends 20 minutes and still does not have an answer. He loves it and we love it. Yesterday he went online late into the evening. He needed $5 for a gift exchange at Boy Scouts. He pays his monthly Boy Scout dues ($10) out of that money. Currently he is saving like crazy for an I-Pod.
We do not have a problem with that approach.