@wis, I’m going to take your words as coming from a place of helpfulness and kindness…yet I cringe a little if you’re characterizing me as a micromanaging parent. Is that really true of me? I really don’t know…but I think that the very fact that I’m questioning myself enough to ask the question here of other music parents, and my admitting that I may need to change course, and the fact that I’m hitting the “helpful” button on every single response (regardless of the position of the responder) because I do appreciate and consider the whole range of ideas people are offering…kind of signals that I’m not an incorrigibly controlling person… just trying to hit that appropriate middle ground. If anything, I tend to be pretty unstructured…so I’ve worked hard to compensate and make sure that I do all those “appropriate parent” things and not be negligent. My daughter is still in that very early transition to middle adolescence where some parental guidance is a good thing (I think) with a movement toward independence.
Many, many days (maybe most days now) pass where my daughter cheerfully goes up to her room (after a bit of afterschool chitchat), spreads her computer, phone, papers, books on her bed, and pretty much stays there (except to eat) until she goes to sleep at ten or eleven. On weekends this can be most of her waking hours unless there’s a specific random or scheduled event to go to (all/any of which SHE has elected to do.) Does this sound like I’m micromanaging/controlling her life? When I check up on her, she’s interweaving paper/book homework, computer homework, texting, computer games, web surfing and social media in a complex mosaic of multitasking and recreational screen time. Most kids do this to some extent these days, but there’s a lot of research coming out that suggests that this is not so great for the brain and body, much less for the young, developing brain, and there’s evidence that electronic media is designed to be powerfully additive. When I let her know (gently, kindly) my concerns about this and ask her to do her homework without the distraction of the computer or phone, she will tell me that the phone is necessary for collaborative projects and for the clarification among her friends of assignments that weren’t made clear in class, etc. and the computer is necessary for research and online homework via Edmodo. I don’ breathe over her, supervising these hours to find out how much of it is work and how much not. However, this means she can be sitting on her bed doing “homework” for the better part of seven or eight hours in the winter after school now that there is no marching band. She does get the homework done, but: is it really micromanaging on my part to wonder if asking a just-barely fifteen-year-old to interrupt the addictive electronic stew for 30 minutes to do something else in her life (such as practicing something that SHE said she’ like to get good at) is indicative of micromanaging or of an unhealthy parent/child dynamic?
A few minutes ago I asked her if there are other afterschool clubs/groups other than band, athletic teams or theater. She said most clubs (i.e. Spanish club, student government) meet just every few weeks in school. The normal academic schedule is interrupted for an hour or so while all clubs meet simultaneously and students choose to attend one or two. She said that mock trial and FBLA are the only ones she knows that meet after school and she’s not interested at this time. The larger community has a robotics club but that’s not her interest either. As far as ballet, I’m NOT controlling it and never have. I drove her for several years back and forth across a twisty mountain range in all weathers and all seasons to help her develop this exacting art/skill because she loved it. It was with some sadness and regret on BOTH her part and my part to end it…only because the time demands for it were growing as she advanced and she didn’t want to be doing homework in the car for 21/2 hours every afternoon/night on top of an exhausting schedule and I didn’t feel safe driving across mountains in the dark every school night on curvy high-speed roads often covered in snow or fog. But SHE still misses that type of ballet (and would likely choose to put in the hours if it were available locally) and felt the void of missing ballet when the excitement of marching band season was over. In the meantime, while she finds something else to fill that void, I thought that transferring some of the dedication she put into ballet might be well-invested in a half-hour of music practice instead of 30 more minutes of Instagram (in which she’s often looking at photos of her ballet friends in their audition shots for summer intensives.) I just mean to encourage her to invest in herself, and embrace HER life, that’s all.
@wis75, I don’t know if you have high school children now, or if yours are all grown …by the amount of posts you’ve accrued I’m going to guess that either you have many children or maybe one or two that are adults now. I have friends whose children (now in their twenties) were teens when social media was just gaining steam, and not every teen had phones, much less i-phones. Talking with my friends, I get the idea that the hold of electronics, and the difficulty of children being able to moderate their use is more powerful now than it was just a few years ago. The kids that happen to be intrinsically passionate about their activities can pull away from electronics for awhile more easily than the more moderate-personality kids who are not doing something compelling (to them.) Social media too easily becomes the default mode for the moderate kids who aren’t destined for Julliard. I think there are times for even non-domineering parents to step in and help guide our kids to a middle ground and I’m looking for that middle ground.
Since I started this thread daughter has had her second lesson with the private teacher and has practiced the special exercises he assigned. I’ll try the wait and see approach for now, and hope she grows to like practicing or at least the results of it. If not, I’ll support anything else she wants to do that doesn’t primarily involve staring at a screen.
Thanks, everyone for your insight and ideas…I’ve got a good range of things to think about and (unless other music parents want to continue the discussion) I’m OK with closing this thread.