When it comes to trying something even slightly difficult, my kids are notorious for giving up rather quickly. It's maddening, and I have very little patience for it. What a surprise, me without patience! This weekend I took the girls to the park and Sarah asked me to teach her how to swing by herself. Her cousin, Ella, can do it and since Ella is only five months older than Sarah it kills her that Ella can do something she can't.
She knows how to pump. She's known how to do that for a couple of years. That does not mean she can do it well, it just means she knows to put her feet forward and pull them back and can do it at the right time. Whether she can do it with enough force to actually move herself is another story. I showed her how to stand as far back as possible, jump on the swing as it's moving forward to get some momentum and then exaggerated how to lean forward and back to get the swing going and go high doing it. She tried for about three second, back and forth two or three times, and then gave up and whined because it was too hard. She did this several times, each time only trying for a few moments, before giving up completely and declaring that she would never ever learn how to swing. Probably not with that attitude.
Andy is very similar. He is a smart kid and likes people to think that he is, so he doesn't like to do things that he is not good at or are hard. Well, basically if they are hard then he isn't good at them. He doesn't ride a bike, because he never finished learning. He was about 95% there, but who knows now. It was too tough and didn't make him look very good for not knowing how to do it. There are several other things that we've asked him if he wants to try and he always says no. Too hard, wouldn't be good at it. God forbid you try something you aren't good at!
I've read articles about this (yes, Mom, I do read a few things other than People magazine from time to time) and he is a classic case. Smart kids don't like to do things that they aren't good at because they think people won't think they aren't smart anymore. To fix this problem you are supposed to emphasize how hard they try something, not how well they did it. You are definitely not supposed to tell them how smart they are, instead saying how determined and hard working they are. We've tried that, it doesn't work with our kids.
I'm not really sure where they get it from. Not from Charlie, that's for sure. That guy doesn't know how to half-ass anything and I'm pretty sure tried anything and everything as a kid. It is not in his DNA to give up or believe that he can't accomplish something. I'm not quite that amazing, but I do remember shooting baskets for hours in my driveway trying to get better at basketball (I never did) and don't tend to have a defeatist attitude about trying new things. I'll refrain from doing things because I'm lazy, but not because I'm not willing to try or not good at it.
Now go back a month to the beginning of school. Andy came home and told us he wanted to join the band. We agreed that he could, one of the stipulations being that he had to practice everyday which is good because that lines up with the goals of his teacher as well. We went to instrument night to get a saxophone, his instrument of choice. Do you know how much a saxophone is? Well, when I was in band my mom bought me a flute for around $250. I think they might even still have it. I thought maybe a saxophone would be around there. Not even close, but that was over 20 years ago. We are "renting" one (it's actually rent to own) for $50 a month. We only have 58 months to go before we own it. When I asked if we were getting a new one or a used one the owner told me we were getting a very high quality saxophone. Um, he's nine. I don't want a high quality saxophone, I want a cheap one that still sounds good.
Anyway, let's jump forward to yesterday. Andy was upstairs in his room practicing his saxophone while I was making dinner. He was playing a brand new song - Mary Had A Little Lamb. That makes two songs he knows, the other being Hot Cross Buns. Yes, it does take a lot of patience to listen to him practice. He keeps asking me to sit in his room while he practices, but believe me, you can hear that thing all over the house. So he played Mary Had A Little Lamb over and over and over again and kept making mistakes. He was getting really frustrated because I could hear him grumbling and yelling at himself which is exactly what I would do. Finally, after about 10 minutes, he played it correctly. As soon as he was done he yelled, "YES".
I'm not sure if he kept trying because he was determined to learn it or if he had to practice a certain amount of time anyway or because he didn't want to look stupid in band practice, but I don't really care. I'm just glad that he stuck with it and is discovering that you can take something you don't know how to do and practice and get better. Maybe he is maturing or his dad's DNA is finally kicking in, but I hope there is more to come.
If he could pass some of it onto his sister, that would be pretty cool too.
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