Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Piano lesson complaining - LONG

<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.

<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. For his attitude to personal responsibility, see below.

<Over the long term how do you see that playing out. Will you be standing over him in middle school, high school, college, on the job? Is he supposed to get the experience again and again that learning is a result of force, but then at some point this morphs into him becoming a self motivated learner and motivated person?>

Short answer to the last question: yes.

Learning how to tackle a difficult task is, for a perfectionist, partly a result of force. Somebody has to make him try. When ds was younger, that somebody was always me.

But because four years ago I found a learning environment for him that challenges him, I have -- thank heavens! -- been able over these past four years to pull back gradually and let him take over the job of approaching difficulties. Now I have a son who is developing an inner strength and an attitude to challenge that I used to despair of seeing in him.

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. In academic areas it hasn't been necessary for two years, because now in 7th grade he's setting his own goals, making a plan to reach them, and implementing it -- pretty much on his own. (I have to say 'pretty much' because he is a typical PG kid -- sometimes has his head in the clouds!)

Now that I think about it, piano is the only thing that still causes minor meltdowns, which I'm guessing is because he's only been at it for about 15 months. But even those are happening less often as he gains confidence in his abilities.

One anecdote, from when he was 5: at the pool one day, standing in the shallow end with him, I made him bend forward and put his face in the water. It probably took ten minutes, and involved (at the end, after reasoning, persuading, promising rewards etc. had failed) my threatening to take away, one by one, all his plastic dinosaurs. 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.

Over the next few weeks he became an avid swimmer.

I've noticed in several areas that if he can be gotten over the initial hump, not only do his abilities really take wing, but his emotional well-being just soars.

I have wondered since the pool incident whether he found his perfectionism so frustrating that he actually appreciated having an external force that was greater than it was, so that with the help of that force he could conquer it.

Now that he can in effect get himself over 'humps' caused by fear of failing to live up to his own standards (my mantra at the piano over the last year has been 'You're the only one of us who is disappointed in your playing'), he is no longer at the mercy of that fear.

I noticed in fine print in that article "not all in china practice 'tough love". I also saw there's a link to a blog that she will answer quiestions emailed to that link on tuesday. So, what were the main quiestions again?
How do the kid's learn anything besides mindless obedience that way?
Doesn't that make your kids incompetent, unable to think on their toes?
Are you going to keep meddling in their life for the rest of their life?

Was that the main quiestions and concerns about what became of her daughters? Or maybe, what was the point of all that? Would they not have been successful otherwise?

I kinda don't like these quiestions because they're thinly disguised opinions instead of the infamously "inquisitive, creative, thoughtful quiestions.". I honestly can't think of any better quiestions because my mother tough loved my poor brain out. I wish could think of an open minded skeptics quiestion for her. That would truly prove that westerner thinking is more better than her. Mwaa-haa-haa. But I can't. We're still better IMO. I just want a good quiestion she hasn't heard before. One that makes her think on her toes, think outside the box.

Ahhhh!!!!! I just read the bottom! I'm going have nightmares. She's a Yale law professor. She's in charge of teaching the lawyers who will be the judges and the supreme court interpretators of America. Noooo.

Well, forget that idea I had about thinking up a really good quiestion to thwart her claims of Asian Supremiority. Not going to happen by Tuesday. I'm a go make some popcorn and watch W. on t.v. again. Gaah.

Mistakes are very important for the learning process. My DD is a perfectionist and comes from a mother whose a perfectionist. I really feel for her sometimes because I find myself demanding when I'm at my wit's end. I have the tendencies to go the direction the author of the posted article describes but thank goodness I haven't been that bad. I also know I don't want to be that way and it has been a learning process for myself. This said ... I'm still trying to figure out how to help DD with her perfectionism WITHOUT drawing a line in the sand. But back to mistakes: for my perfectionist daughter I find mistakes necessary and almost god sent. If I'm being honest ... mistakes for both of us is a great thing. It builds character and helps teach us that no one is perfect and perfectionism is a dream state that does not truly exist.

And then there's that picture of that little girl all growed up looking lovely playing in carnage hall as a teenager. Of course, like it said in the comments, um, rock stars earn more than classical musicians. Sitcom stars got houses on Cribs while Shakespearian actors starve. Which is another quiestion Wren brought up in another thread. No, it wasn't Wren. Who was it? Raddy, I think. Who brought up with the global economy on the cusp of change and technology changing the face of the job market, does it behoove our kid's more to teach them to work with their minds, or to work with technology, or to work with their hands?

And this is going to bug me, I know I can come up with a good quiestion to blow that chinese mother, Asian woman, Yale law professors mind. But not by Tuesday. I can't think on purpose. It just happens when it happens. And, yes, I'm trying to work on that.

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.


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.


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?



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.



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.

I think the roots of a lot of these kinds of approaches are:

1. Some parents forget that they don't own their kids, and

2. There are control issues going on. This is particularly evident if Mom or Dad picks all or most extracurriculars and decides what the child has to learn, when, and how.

What's wrong with letting a kid just goof around on a skating rink or at the piano? If SHE wants to learn crossovers, that's her decision. If kids want to develop their skills, they will. Why do people insist on imposing themselves so much and so profoundly on their kids? And then finding ways to justify it by citing self-serving examples? Please see point #1.

Yes, I don't think that sounds like a system that's working. To some extent I think strong encouragement might help a kid realize that his boundaries are not as fixed as he thought, resulting in greater self-confidence. But this little vignette certainly doesn't sound like evidence of a child who will turn out to have the "eye of the tiger". It sounds like an unhappy kid who's trying to appease his mom while she is pushing him, and/or actually does need her as a crutch-- either is not good in my opinion.