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

<We never used force with our perfectionist and he's self motivated and will tackle anything. How do you explain that?>

First, how do you know he didn't use some kind of 'force' on himself? That's something we often have to do when faced with things we're afraid of -- taking a deep breath, steeling ourselves -- and that's part of what I had in mind when I said 'Learning how to tackle a difficult task is, for a perfectionist, partly a result of force.'

Second, I assumed that on these forums the qualifying statement 'your mileage may vary' was understood, and that I didn't have to stipulate that what worked well for our child might not work for others.

<It does seem to me again though that you are giving yourself quite a lot of responsibility and credit for his learning.>

I find it strange that this seems to bother you. All I was doing is talking about what has worked for us; as my son's primary caregiver, I had the job of creating his learning environment. How he acted within that environment used to be more my 'responsibility' than his, but as he has matured, he has taken it on himself -- and is doing so confidently and happily.

<As a parent I want to know as my child goes through life he believes he can learn and he can tackle new situations.>

On that we agree. We just have different ways of reaching that goal.

<his mom is the kind of person who so prioritizing him acquiring new skills that she's willing to threaten him.>

I'm afraid you don't understand what my priority was, which is kind of surprising since it's been the main topic of this exchange. I didn't care about the skill itself, just as I didn't care about the two measures in the piano piece my son was having trouble playing yesterday. The issue was the much larger, far more important problem of crippling perfectionism.

The way we dealt with it seems to have worked well for us, given the thoughtful, self-aware comments my son has been making lately about his own development and the way he now reacts to most challenges.

And on a lighter note -- are there really parents out there who never 'threaten' their kids?? I mean, come on -- you can dress it up and call it 'offering multiple consequences' if you want, but 'You have a choice: you can put away your toys now or you don't get x' is a threat.

Parents (stereotypical 'Western parents, perhaps, to return to the WSJ article) who aren't comfortable with the idea that they have more power than their children don't like thinking of it that way, but that's what it is.

<But this little vignette certainly doesn't sound like evidence of a child who will turn out to have the "eye of the tiger".>

I'm not sure what the 'eye of the tiger' is - could you explain?

<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.>

Or it could actually be a kid like the one I've been describing, a mostly self-directed 11 year old with a very strong internal locus of control who has learned over the six years since that day that he doesn't have to let fear of failure dominate his attitude to life, and as a result is setting and meeting his own ambitious goals.

I think that was the whole point: the motivation came from within. This type of motivation is very powerful.

I've seen arguments in favor of forcing a child to do a task in order to "teach" that something seemingly too hard was doable after all. But if external pressure always has to be applied, it's entirely possible that the lesson will actually be, "I can't do anything by myself."

It sounds to me that the child you've been describing is one who's pushed quite intensely, to the point of tears, and who may wind up lacking drive because of retaining bad memories of being forced to practice on a task you've chosen. I don't know what a "very strong internal locus of control is"-- is that a brain? Don't we all have one of those?

If your child won't tackle challenges by himself, I'm skeptical that your approach is going to transform him into a go-getter who pushes past his previous boundaries. Of course, you may wind up holding such sway over him even into adulthood that he strives to please you, or he may well acquire good study and practice habits that improve his academic standing at some university or other. I doubt that that's the sort of thing that will transform him into a world-beater in any field, but it may do well at helping him get a higher-paying job, of course.

<I don't know what a "very strong internal locus of control is">

I may be misusing the term, but here goes: I find it useful to describe people's relationship to -- authority, for lack of a better word. My son doesn't care much about the opinions of external authority figures or standards imposed from outside (I'm guessing this is because his own standards are so much higher!). Years ago I read a post on a gifted forum describing people with this mindset as having a 'strong internal locus of control', and I thought, 'That describes my DS to a T'.

<If your child won't tackle challenges by himself, I'm skeptical that your approach is going to transform him into a go-getter who pushes past his previous boundaries.>

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds as if you haven't been reading my posts. I'll say it again: apart from minor meltdowns at the piano, which he took up 15 months ago, my son hasn't needed any input from me to deal with his fear of failure in over two years.

<I doubt that that's the sort of thing that will transform him into a world-beater in any field>

I'm afraid you've lost me there -- he (and we) don't have those sorts of competitive goals for him. I'm curious -- why do you see that as something to strive for?

This is such a powerful point, Val. And this is selfish, but the thought of threatening (with a raised level of aggravation at home) all the time to get my kid to do things just wears me flat. I can't and won't do it.

Honestly, I can't see how anyone can go from external pressure to internal pressure all by himself just because external pressure is put on constantly. Where is the mechanism for that leap?

Yeah, I've read that term "internal locus of control" used on the Internet once before too. It must have come from a book. Google it and see what amazon has to say. Maybe it came from the context of a specific research project or from a job-specific vocabulary list. It's a made-up phrase, whatever it is.

I'm sorry for losing you there again. If some mediocre level of worldly success is what you dream for your child, you may well be on the right track, as I wrote before. I would prefer my child to come as close to his full potential as possible, and of course I also want him to be happy.

It seems to me that your upbringing may be doing the opposite of creating someone with a strong internal locus of control, after reading this Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

The reasons include the crying etc., which make it seem more likely your son will avoid trying when the pressure's off; and the fact that he apparently feels that he needs you to push him when he faces a tough obstacle. I just don't see how that's going to translate into indomitable will to overcome, when mommy's not around any more.

ETA: Val and blob said it better. Mechanism for the leap.

"Internal locus of control" means that a person sees themselves as both being responsible for what happens to them and having power over it, and "external locus of control" means that they view outside forces (luck, fate,'talent', family connections, other people) as having greater power and agency than they do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

Edit: I think others must have posted this link soon after I started this reply. Didn't mean to add little or nothing to the discussion.

To remedy that defect, I'll expand a bit. I think (and this thought is supported by quite a bit of research) that a child developing a strong internal locus of control is not really dependent on whether a parent "pushes" or doesn't "push", but rather on how parents, teachers, and other family members respond to success and failure, and what they attribute these to. A child who hears "You did really well. It is clear that you worked really hard." is far more likely to feel that they were in control of the outcome than one who hears "You did really well. You must be smart." or "You did really well. I bet you're the teacher's favorite." A child who hears "You didn't do so well, but you didn't really work very hard. Next time, start practicing sooner, and I'm sure you'll do better." gets very different messages about their responsibility, power, and control than one who hears "You didn't do so well. I guess you just don't have a talent for ________. " or "You didn't do so well. I guess it wasn't your lucky day."

A strong internal locus of control is associated with success and resiliency. To the extent that Asian parents communicate that their children's success in within their control, they are helping them to develop that internal locus of control. But when the pushing is taken to an extreme, when failure is never an option, something very interesting, and, IMO, more than a little sad, happens: the children don't know when to quit, don't know how to deal with failure, and have a hard time recognizing when it is appropriate to stop trying. I can't find the link right now, but I know there was a study done that compared high-performing students from Asia with high-performing American students, and presented both groups with a set of very difficult math challenges to solve. For some of the problems, in fact, no solution was possible. Both groups of students worked diligently, but the American students were able to recognize that no solution was possible to some of the problems much earlier than the Asian students, many of whom refused to stop working even when it should have been clear that all reasonable approaches to the problems had been exhausted. There is such a thing as having too strong an internal locus of control.

Re 'mechanism for the leap':

Judging by my son's reaction to success, and the fact that he's now great at challenging himself (except at the piano!), I'd say the 'mechanism' comes from his having realized two things:

1) 'Hey, once I get past the initial paralyzing fear, I can actually do x!'

(I think that's where the intense joy comes from, the beaming smile he gets on his face when he realizes he's mastered something he thought was impossible.)

and

2) 'I don't need anybody else to make me make that leap -- I can do it myself!'

It took a while, but he does seem to have realized a few years ago that he had it in him to push himself -- he didn't need Mom to do it anymore. The lingering doubts at the piano (*much* more mildly expressed than his old fears) are all that remains.