<p>Let the boy fix his own meals too. If he’s hungry, he’ll eat.</p>
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<p>Right, because when you quit just a few months shy of getting a black belt, you have to sign a pledge saying that you’ll never, ever, ever go back and continue towards that black belt. Nope, it’s clearly a door that is closed and locked forever. @@</p>
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<p>Clearly you are. The first two paragraphs of your original post are dripping with sarcasm.</p>
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<p>I defy you to find a parent here who advocates letting their kids sit around on the couch playing video games. You are deliberately misrepresenting the views of parents who disagree with you.</p>
<p>I saw that headline on Dear Abby and I thought, woah IP dude got quick results with his new method.</p>
<p>“Let the boy fix his own meals too. If he’s hungry, he’ll eat.”</p>
<p>Three and four year olds in West Africa do exactly that, over an open fire. They also use machetes safely by the time they can stand. Four year olds provide excellent, unsupervised care for 20 month olds.</p>
<p>I never heard of any West African kids who were great at squash and piano.</p>
<p>So if he can add the cooking skill, imagine how far he can go!</p>
<p>How old is IP’s son? I tried to go back to old posts but there are just TOO many!</p>
<p>This sounds like a rehash of the Tiger Mom debate.</p>
<p>If you remove or lock up the TV and video games, you will learn a lot about what interests your child, and go from there to facilitate those interests.</p>
<p>Yeah, maybe he’ll take up lock-picking.</p>
<p>whack-a-mole! LOL slithey!</p>
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<p>He does already.</p>
<p>It must be after NOON. Just saying.</p>
<p><a href=“P.S.%20Forget%20rigor%20in%20school.%20You%20-%20and%20they%20-%20don’t%20need%20school%20at%20all.”>quote</a>
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<p>The thought has indeed come to me. What if we let him skip school if he doesn’t want to go? What’s the downside? Either he realizes that he misses his friends and goes back, or he doesn’t miss his friends and stays back. It will be his choice, not ours.</p>
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<p>I am done, dude. Facilitating is hard work. Let the kid sink or swim.</p>
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<p>Yeah, right.</p>
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<p>As I suspected…</p>
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<p>I agree. My mom used to run an adult education center for urban slums. Plenty of people there who grew up illiterate but learned to read and write in their 40s. You always have a second chance.</p>
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<p>He watches a lot of cooking shows indeed. Perhaps I have a talented cook in my hands!</p>
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<p>I just can’t make people happy. OK, so what would you do in my shoes? Give details please like I gave in the OP.</p>