When Is It OK For Your Kid To Quit Things?
Welcome to the world, Quitter.
Sam’s Story:
Allow me to introduce myself to you: I am a quitter. I ‘quit’ things. There is virtually no extracurricular, no tough-as-nails math class, no sports-ball based endeavor, that I didn’t, at some point in my childhood, simply throw up my hands at and walk away from.
Inspirational words, right? Yeah.
Drink them in.
Was I raised to be a quitter though?
Oh yes, most definitely.
When I was a kid, no one ever made me do anything. Want to take ballet? Oh wait — don’t ballerinas have to go upside down sometimes? I don’t care for that. How about piano? No thanks. My teacher smells like meatloaf. All right then, let’s try this: How about watching television from the crack of dawn until the dark of night with a cat sleeping on your feet and a bowl of Sugar Crisp balanced precariously on your lap the whole time? Perfect.
It’s nobody’s fault really. People just didn’t know back then that a steady diet of disco records and staring out the window at the other children playing in the sunshine all summer long could cause their children to become little mini Rip Van Winkle’s. (That’s me. I’m the Rip Van Winkle.)
But, in the end, you know what all that quitting did to me? It made me determined not to raise my own quitters. And this is slightly more … um … complicated than I thought it would be.
Because my daughter really doesn’t like any of the extracurricular fun-time classes I put her in.
I mean, soccer was a no-brainer. I had to let her quit. Every time she had to put that G.D. Super Soccer Stars t-shirt on, it was like I had asked her to put on a necklace of sausages and jump into a pit of starving grizzly bears.
But ballet. This is a tough one. She liked it just fine until it was revealed that she would be participating in a performance two-thirds of the way through. And now, talking about this performance has become an obsession, complete with tears, bargaining (“How can I do this class with a Band-Aid on my knee? I won’t be able to stretch my leg out!“), phantom stomach aches, and ultimately, recriminations (“Why would you make me do this when you know I don’t like it?”).
As a mother, I respect the tenacity of her attempts to get out of ballet, what with all of the clever tactical shifts. And as a mother, it is very sad to watch my daughter not enjoy something while simultaneously forcing it upon her.
No one expects, or even wants her to go into ballet. No one wants her to take a class that she loathes. All I demand is that she stick with it for the completion of one semester, and then she is free to pick something else. You know, in order that she fully prove to herself whether she truly dislikes it, or is just having a strong reaction to performing for people — which can certainly be scary.
Reasonable, right?
How much does a child have to hate something before they are allowed to quit that thing, and does quitting something always make you a quitter, and is being a ‘quitter’ sometimes just OK?
Thoughts.
(Piano though. All my children are required to take piano. I need them to play beautiful music for me when I’m old and decrepit. Plus, I don’t want them to turn out like Allana. Sorry Allana. I love you.)
Allana’s Story:
I have this reoccurring dream fantasy and it goes something like this: I’m at a party and it’s dead silent. Conversation is stilted and then someone whispers something about the wires to the stereo being disconnected, never to be connected ever again. A ripple of exhaustion moves through the crowd. A person starts to put on their coat. And then, suddenly out of the corner of the room a single note is heard and:
“Sing us a song, you’re the piano man…”
The crowd separates to find me, Allana Harkin, sitting behind a grand piano. A smile spreads across my face as I begin the first song in my large repertoire of classic pop and jazz tunes that include far too many Billy Joel hits.
The party comes alive as they circle around my piano all belting out “My Life” and one person yells out over the singing to their companion:
“Thank God her parents made her stick to those lessons!”
Alas, this is all but a dream. I don’t play the piano, and I have no musical talent beyond being courageous enough to sing “Bust A Move” at a karaoke bar.
It’s not like I didn’t have the option. I distinctly remember my parents asking my sister and I whether we’d like an organ or to go to the Barbados for a week. I instantly chose the organ as I had no idea what was this “Barbados” they spoke of. Much to my parents dismay, I spent most of my ‘practicing’ time dancing to the fox trot button that came with the organ. I did learn how to play “The Red River Valley” but eventually decided that electronic cowboy love songs weren’t for me. Therefore I retired from my 3 months of organ mastery.
So is this my parents fault? Should they have pushed me? Made me stick with it? And more importantly, why were they giving us the choice between an organ and the Barbados? Why not the steel drum and northern Alaska? As is much of my youth, it’s all such a blur.
That being said I’m available for weddings. I can play one painfully slow and depressing version of “The Red River Valley” and gleefully dance to a synthesizer. Sam can surely attest to this as I, in my own humble opinion, really made her 40th birthday party come alive.
Call me.
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Check out previous posts by Sam and Allana:
You Will Be Diaper Free One Day (Maybe)
Samantha Bee Made Me Eat My Placenta
“I’d Rather…”: The Lengths That Mothers Will Go To Avoid Their Worst Nightmares
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it is not a good idea to promise your child a trip to space camp in huntsville alabama if they play basketball. especially if that child actually does play basketball and scores for the other team and sits on the bench. you can not then deny that you offered spacecamp in exchange for their efforts. i, i mean they, will never forget.
I also tried and quit just about everything. My mom always says that I was born to be a talk show host because I am intensely into everything for about 5 mins then it’s on to the next thing. Not sure how to handle it when mine gets bigger.
Yes, so true. I remember that choice. I also remember campaigning hard for Barbados. Sadly, I lost. Equally sadly, my parents wasted 3000 hard earned dollars on an ORGAN. I think a piano might have been a better choice. In hindsight. Although the organ went better with the orange shag rug and the mirrored walls beside the bar in the basement.
Love this! Huge fan of Samantha Bee here…
About piano, I forced my son to take it until about 6th grade. Just couldn’t see driving him to those Tuesday afternoon classes or missing a lacrosse game because he had to play a recital in middle school, right?
HOWEVER, the lessons he took for six years provided a great foundation. Now, he comes home from high school and bangs out Springteen or Mumford & Sons and writes his own stuff. If I hadn’t let him quit, I’m convinced he would have eventually hated the piano. So there’s that.
My elementary school had mandatory musical instrument curriculum (five years), and I continued to play through high school. I would’ve given anything to have avoided the performing-in-front-of-people bit. By senior year I had had enough of the embarrassment so I ducked out of a couple performances – I’m still fighting the guilt over that 20+ years on. Then there’s the time I was begged by the HS coach to be on the league’s ‘All-Star Basketball Team’ my senior year – only for the fact that the league changed the rules so that only seniors were allowed on, and I was the only senior on the team. That’s another massively embarrassing moment that I wish I could’ve avoided/quit the team/throttled the coach. There’s a lot to say for quitting…
I’d like to think I’d only encourage my kids in what they love beyond all doubt, but how can one be sure without going through a little doubt/hesitation/anxiety stomach aches?
This was one of your best entries – both laugh out loud funny and brings up really complicated parenting questions. I’m not sure what I think yet … but I will note that my firstborn is a classic introvert. He’s always been an observer, and social activities and interactions with people are really draining for him (often very good and important, the socializing, but he really needs built-in downtime to process). So our rule to date (he’s 4) is that he MUST GO. However, once he gets to the class/party/school, etc, he can participate as much or as little as he wants. After he’s been there for 10 minutes he can choose to go if its just too much/overwhelming. He’s never chosen to go home, but often needs quite a bit of time to warm up. And needs to decompress afterward. I guess my bottom line point is that every kid’s temperament needs to be taken into account on this question.
I wonder about this too. I was NOT a quitter as a child. I wanted to quit some things, but I was deathly afraid of disappointing my parents for some reason. I am not sure why I felt so strongly about that. My younger sister quit everything, and I was actually very jealous and wished I could be like her! But, my sister’s quitting made me feel even more strongly that I better stick with it and be my parent’s “one last hope”! Now, my 7 year old daughter wants to quit everything she starts. She is excited at the beginning, and maybe for the first few months of a new activity. Then she starts complaining and just wants to quit. For her, we have made two “core activities” (piano and swimming – because we think they’re important for her to learn). For other activities, we require her to finish out the session (because we’ve paid for it), but then she may quit. Surprisingly, after all her complaining, when it comes right down to the decision to drop out she actually decides to continue most times! So for my daughter, I don’t think it’s lack of interest in the activity. It’s more “I don’t want to stop what I’m doing and put on my uniform and go RIGHT NOW.” – whatever you call that – laziness? trouble shifting focus? Anyway, thanks for the thought-provoking post. I wonder about this a lot too, especially when my daughter is whining “I don’t want to go! I want to quit!” while I’m trying to get her out the door…. :(
I am more proud and happy about the things I’ve quit in my life than anything else. That band teacher was a jerk and I’m glad I left him high and dry before the 6th grade recital.
I have only one rule with the quitting…if its a team sport…they can’t quit till the season is over. Heres the thing…I was a soccer coach. We get 12 kids to play on a team. If kid decides to quit, or randomly come to games and practices…guess what – that leaves the team without substitutes. That means…on a game day you have a 5 year old playing 40 minutes of soccer without a break, because some parent decided to let their kid quit the team. I do have an issue with that. My daughter joined soccer only to dislike it…we still went to every game, because if they needed an extra body…she was there. She finished the season, and all was good. She just won’t do it again. Ballet – not fast enough for her, I think everyone was pleased she was out within a month. My son, he comes and goes with his love for soccer and baseball. The rule is if we sign up, we have to finish the season. When you have a team depending on you – you don’t stop mid-season.
Allow me to comment from the other side of the “quitting piano” equation: I taught piano lessons in my home for more than a decade when my own children were young and I didn’t want to work outside the home. I cannot begin to describe the misery of sitting through 30 or 45 minutes of unpracticed, unmotivated, unmusical “Beethoven for Beginners”. I tried to keep lessons interesting, purchased sheet music of current Top-40 music for students to learn as a reward if they mastered enough 2-handed scales, and gave out fun stickers, pencils, and other musical tchochkes whenever I could possibly find a justification. However, there were just too many kids taking piano lessons because their parents insisted, rather than because they themselves had any desire to learn to play the piano. Also, my own children were beginning to have PTSD from listening to so much musical butchery. I finally developed a stock speech for students and parents when the child’s misery (and my own) became too much to bear: “Your child is not practicing sufficiently and doesn’t seem to be making progress with me, which is a waste of your child’s effort, my time, and your money. If you would like to continue lessons, here are the names and phone numbers of three excellent piano teachers in the area”. And then, when the child and parent were out the door, I would have a big, big glass of wine. I guess I’m saying that sometimes quitting is okay…and chances are, your piano teacher will secretly thank you.
This is one of the great parenting tensions of our time! So many kids are loaded up on extracurriculars, and my kids are no exception. There is always a balance of who does what for why and who is forcing whom. In our family, my husband insists that the kids play piano. Right now they have a pretty dippy teacher who lives close, teaches out of her home and is by far the cheapest in town. She also has a lovely baby grand piano that they get to play. But they are bored out of their minds and they gripe about every practice. I WISH the piano teacher would fire us. But then my husband would insist that I find a different teacher to cart them to… I have put the question to him a number of times: OK, how long are they required to play? They actually don’t love it like you do…. However my guys seem to be genuinely happy with their other activities. They choose their own sports. But I did require one guy to do math club for a few months. He actually liked it after he tried it, so that one was easy.
Well, I learned the piano and stuck with it for years. But now, I never play, and I’m more bummed that I didn’t keep up with it. Also, my parents made me choose between piano and gymnastics, and I chose piano but have always wondered how I’d have done in gymnastics. And I played soccer, but it was a miserable couple of seasons, so my parents let me quit. I regret that because I know I could have done better if I’d applied myself, but I also don’t really care about sports and won’t be heartbroken if my sons aren’t into them either. I guess what I’m trying to say is, whatever kids do or don’t do, stick with or quit, it doesn’t have a huge effect on what they’ll feel about it as an adult. The point is to make kids try stuff, to help them figure out who they are. I’m with Samantha on making her daughter stick to ballet just through the semester. Just see one term or season through, then decide. Then it’s less like quitting, more like moving on.
Wow, did this piece ever hit home. I didn’t quit anything, I just never joined in the first place, so I’ve made my kid at least try stuff. But the piano. Oy. http://ifjanetranit.tumblr.com/search/piano
Thanks for entertaining reads. Great stuff.