In reality and about 50% of the time:
Kid shows interest in something and the parent leans into it and encourages them, buys them the best stuff.
Kid gets burnt out on the thing and never touches it again.
Source, my daughter who loved art, then cooking, then tennis, then…
Dont get discouraged. Kids who sample or dabble in many interests are more likely to be top performers in their field later in life.
edit: I cant find the actual study at the moment, but it was covered on No Stupid Questions, so they will have provided a citation.
It sounds like the thesis to David Epstein’s book, Range. When I read it, it was a game changer for me.
If I recall correctly, the main examples were Roger Federer (who played a lot of sports and didn’t choose to specialize in tennis until much later than the typical tennis pro), jazz legend Django Reinhardt, Vincent Van Gogh, and a bunch of other less famous, but much more typical examples.
an epstine book being recommended for advice on kids?
This is sweet, happy mother’s day to those moms. My mom pushed me into things I didn’t like and told her I didn’t like. So this gave me emotions lol
Different experience for me. My mum was a lovely person who never pressured me into anything, and in retrospect I wish she had, just a tiny bit more.
She asked for example if I wanted to learn an instrument - and I said no, and she respected that and didn’t push. The truth is that I’d have actually loved to, but I was afraid of failing, and scared to start.
Now in my late thirties I finally bought an electric piano and started learning.
I don’t blame my mum at all, but I guess my point is that kids will very often say “no” to things, because no is the easy answer. If she’d said instead “try a couple of lessons, and if you don’t enjoy it you can stop” then the outcome would have been quite different.
Music in particular I would kind of consider an exception, just because of the benefits of giving early musical education can help so much with acquiring the “language” while the brain is still in sponge mode, 4 to 10 years old.
If you’re forcing your teenager to work at it day and night and to go to the conservatory etc, that’s a different story.
My parents were rather strict with the music lessons, which I did sometimes resent at the time. These days I’m grateful as I couldn’t imagine not being able to just play the music that’s in my head. My parents a little less so, as they have heard “enough Prokofiev for a lifetime”, and my polyrhythms make them feel like they have a “heart attack”.
They reap what they sow muahahaha.
