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<p>Look, is it important to turn your kid into a piano / violin virtuoso regardless of natural talent, ability and / or interest, or not? It’s a simple question.</p>
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<p>TheGFG,
What about the kids who were known to be kind, honest, hard-working, helpful, selfless, caring, sincere, genuine, happy - did they not get the sincere respect of their classmates? And if not, does it even matter?</p>
<p>Natural talent vs acquired ability is a whole other discussion. I am not being disingenious Pizzagirl. I think you and I have a different take on the book - I see it as a tongue-in-cheek account and the author herself is questioning some of the things she has done.</p>
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<p>Mine did. I offered them a bunch of activities, and they knew exactly which ones interested them and we went with those. Then they changed to something else that interested them and eventually excelled in what they liked best. They found that thing in 8th or 9th grade, and by then had been able to try just about everything.</p>
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<p>Your kids are truly lucky to be able to “try just about everything” by 8th or 9th grade. Most of us cannot afford that, time-wise or financially.</p>
<p>^Yes, they were lucky. Like Chua, we were fortunate to be able to afford to raise our kids this way, and I threw it out there to provide an alternate method that worked really well.</p>
<p>And as someone else pointed out earlier, all of my kids different activities probably ended up costing less than piano/violin/tennis lessons for all those years.</p>
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<p>That doesn’t mean that the solution is therefore to decide when they are 5 that their interest IS going to be piano, violin, tennis or what-not and that’s the way it is.</p>
<p>Of the interests that my kids had that made them most interesting to colleges – my D didn’t develop her interest til late in junior year. My S developed his interest sometime around end of sophomore year / beginning of junior year. Oh well! They did pretty well by CC standards. </p>
<p>I reject the notion that your extracurricular interests need to be pre-determined at young ages. That’s exactly counter to the spirit of “you’re never too old to learn something new” and “it’s a wide world out there, full of fascinating choices” that are part of the value set I aspire to transmit to my children. Determining that your kid at age 5 must get on the path to piano virtuosity regardless of his / her interest is precisely the opposite of that value set.</p>
<p>^I had one son who got the computer programming bug at 7. We did expose him to other stuff (clarinet, soccer), but that was the one that stuck. Oh and he started with piano at 7, but hated it so we switched to clarinet when band started at his elementary school a couple of years later. Already being able to read music was useful.</p>
<p>Younger son played violin starting at 7 and continued to play all through high school. (But he’s no virtuoso.) The two activities he wrote his essays about origami and a volunteer activity archiving papers for the neighborhood association, both cost virtually nothing and he didn’t start either till high school. (Actually he earned money with the origami eventually.)</p>
<p>I think it’s hard to predict what kids will get interested in and if possible it’s better to exposed them to a wide variety of activities when they are young rather than to try to get them to be prodigies. If you have a budding prodigy (and I did have one) they’ll let you know.</p>
<p>I disagree however that violin or piano playing can’t be carried on to adult life. Even if you don’t play at Carnegie Hall there are plenty of opportunities to play. Amateur orchestras (our doctor is in one), neighborhood chamber music get togethers, parties where someone sits at the piano and plays for fun. Maybe it’s different elsewhere, but we have almost every type of music going on somewhere in our neighborhood.</p>
<p>And I was rather happy when my son who rarely practiced the violin and didn’t bring it to college asked us to bring it up at Parents Weekend.</p>
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<p>Why would you do that? Which is worse, crazy to the left or crazy to the right? Why not instead compare “off your rocker” instead to the very large spectrum of mainstream parenting which adapts to different children, which is assertive but not aggressive, which is supportive but not enabling, and which involves making mistakes, apologizing, learning lessons and moving on.</p>
<p>The most difficult thing is to adapt to your individual children while remaining simultaneously calm (at least… relatively, LOL) and assertive. But that is what most people are striving for. Ignoring that option is silly. It’s the main one and it’s the most effective.</p>
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<p>But there is such a great middle-ground here, of trying to get your children involved in whatever you can afford and cultivating interests that they do show. Naturally that may not involve piano but if they do show an amazing drive or talent for one thing, you can delve deeper. Let’s say you can only afford a YMCA membership and one series of music lessons a year… you can always quit the Y if they want to do more music.</p>
<p>We do not have a lot of money but I had my kids in the Y and my older child (four) takes occasional piano lessons. She learns Arabic at the local mosque for free. That is a lot of stuff and we hardly spend any money on it, maybe $50, and we’re going to do an exploratory music thing and if she wants to quit her sport at the Y she can and then do school sports if she wants later.</p>
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<p>Bay has a very good point here. Sounds like she has a superior approach over Chua’s. Of course Chua’s is easier for the parents but could be harmful to the kids.</p>
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I agree with this, but my point (which follows up from another post way upthread, I think from musicprnt) is that Amy Chua’s approach to music focussed on solo playing, not ensemble playing, and certainly not playing for fun. My limited observation is that the person who sits down at the piano at a party and plays for fun is not the intense classical soloist.</p>
<p>I think the point of the piano and violin lessons at an early age wasn’t to make them a great piano player but was to teach them hard work and other important skills.</p>
<p>Apparently students who play an instrument r better in school. I’m an exception but there is a correlation.</p>
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If so, then hours of daily practice is absurd overkill.</p>
<p>Your kids are truly lucky to be able to “try just about everything” by 8th or 9th grade. Most of us cannot afford that, time-wise or financially. </p>
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<p>Doesn’t this describe most American parents, who try to get their kids exposed to some sort of extracurricular activity to the extent that their time, energy, budget and resources allow? It’s hardly as though you can’t find park districts chock full of inexpensive programs designed to introduce kids to various activities. It’s hardly as though you can’t find music, dance or theater programs geared towards children – even if said children aren’t going to wind up on Carnegie Hall, dancing with the Joffrey Ballet, or on Broadway.</p>
<p>I particularly liked post #1222. I highly doubt that anyone who accomplished anything of lasting consequence in life did so for the extrinsic reward of praise from others.</p>
<p>Much of what we need as a society - better scientists, researchers and technically gifted individuals - are not created by motivating students with shiny ribbons and public adulation. I think a high performing child who is motivated primarily by the approval of parents and attention from others, is likely to contribute very little to the “hard work in the trenches” and instead expect a continued regimen of praise for their abilities. I don’t think the folks working on cancer cell research in a lab, or those working at the cutting edge of spinal cord injury treatment, have regular doses of praise and recognition from their colleagues so much as they have the continuous challenge of creating knowledge from ignorance through loving the work that they do.</p>
<p>Chua’s emphasis on extrinsic reward seems shallow by comparison to real opportunities for nurturing passion.</p>
<p>And to top it off she has done a disservice to the piano and violin by making them appear to be the select avenues for those only interested in public recognition through solo awards. There are good reasons that students might choose these instruments, not the least of which is the very large library of solo music written for each that will allow a student to enjoy playing as a soloist even when no one is looking.</p>
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<p>Bingo. What lesson about hard work wouldn’t have been taught if Chua had said, “Honey, I can see you’re tired and we’re not getting anywhere. Let’s take a break and go have dinner and clear our heads. The piano will be still be there tomorrow, it’s not going anywhere.” Or would that just be the mark of a loser, slacker, quitter?</p>
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<p>While these are important professions, I don’t agree that they are “much of what we need as a society.” We need teachers and nurses and construction contractors and artists and lawyers and government leaders and sales people and sanitation workers and I could go on forever. There aren’t just 3 occupations that are important and worthwhile.</p>
<p>There is a place in life for everyone, where they can excel and be happy. Helping your child find that place should be the parents’ role.</p>
<p>bchan1 - I actually disagree with what you said about people are not motivated by praise, and all motivation needs to come from within. The reason I say that is, I have been going to many motivation courses (or management courses). In my business, most people think it is all about “show me the money.” Two years ago, when most of our staff experienced 40% cut in pay, and we had to keep their morale and motivation going, one thing we were told to do was to give special recognition to high performers (in front of people), and sometimes a simple “Thank-you, job well done,” would also go a long way. We presented gift certificates of $25, half day off, and read their accomplishments at town halls. Our area globally had the lowest turnover rate, and our employee engagement survey was one of the highest. </p>
<p>My experience of that incident taught me that no matter how old (or self motivated) someone is, at the end of the day they want to know they are doing a good job (praise) and are being appreciated.</p>
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<p>Yes, and that’s exactly my point.</p>
<p>Since most people won’t have the resources to pay for Carnegie-Hall-level teachers even if they take out a second mortgage (assuming they own their home in the first place), this is the only reasonable path to take.</p>
<p>I don’t see it as a choice between passive/permissive and aggressive/controlling. I think a lot of people choose the middle ground and rightly so.</p>
<p>And there’s nothing wrong with extrinsic motivation to get a child to a place where they can understand the joy of the intrinsic motivation they find when they are doing well. I don’t disagree with Chua on that. The question is, what kind of motivation and to what extent? I don’t think denying basic rights to a small child falls under “acceptable” for me.</p>