Piano vs Basketball

koshkas
Thu, 20 Oct 2016 20:47:46 +0000

OP, while I agree with other posters about relaxing and letting the child to guide you, I totally understand the fear that kid is not learning that you need to put some effort into what you are doing and not to drop everything at the first sight of difficulties or boring parts.

We had this fear too as our S went through his various ECs. What we did is we tried to set a goal: “you can drop *** when you reach level XX and then we will discuss what’s next” . That level we tried to determine along with the kid, so ideally he would set it himself. The important part is that level/dropping point must be reachable in reasonable amount of time (a few months). Then he has a clear goal, a timeframe, he must work to reach it and still feels in control and even pride when the point is reached - no easy jumping from one activity to another but still the choice is there.
Also, we always asked for reasoning behind switching from one activity to another and “I just don’t like it” didn’t work - we required a long explanation and a discussion. It not only helped him with particular decisions, it made the kid to look at the bigger picture and set his own goals.