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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3843 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Stop Forcing Your Kids to Learn a Musical Instrument

Wish to god I'd been forced to stick with the piano. Incredibly glad my parents made me play baseball starting at age 5. Changed my life.

But it's not as simple as throwing your kids out there, because I'll never forgive my parents for forcing me to be a part of the Boy Scouts for my entire childhood.





b_b  ·  3843 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Forcing kids to do things is never going to work. Rather parents should try to teach kids why they want them to do this or that. I was forced to be a competitive swimmer for my whole childhood. I hated it so much. I'm a damn good swimmer as an adult, but still, I'll never forget the horror of all those early mornings in the summer when my friends were all sleeping in.

user-inactivated  ·  3843 days ago  ·  link  ·  

And I'll never forget dreading weekends because instead of doing what I wanted I was going to be camping with people I didn't care about in freezing weather. Now? I love camping. It varies. If my parents had never forced me to do anything, I might not have done anything. You never know whether you're going to have a kid who actively picks their own hobbies, or a kid who sits and plays video games after school until they pass out.

So I disagree in part. It's true, by the time I was about 10 I had made my opinions very clear and dropping out of the church choir probably should have been an option. But in the long run it didn't do too much damage.

intjk  ·  3829 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm right there with you. I took piano for 10 years as a child, but my mother had to bribe me every year to continue. I definitely preferred to be doing other things. Now, about 7 years after, I'm learning guitar, learning to sing, writing, composing and producing my own music, and actively using my abilities on piano. I'm quite thankful that my mother kept me going, even when I didn't want to.