When to push

James is one of thosge rare individuals, at the ripe old age of six , for whom things just seem to come easy. He just doesn’t have to work all that hard. When moms ask me how I taught him to read (which was my big stress in homeschooling, what if I failed in teaching him to read?!), I kind of shrug, he just read. He seem like math would be tougher, but then he listened to these (extremely annoying) math songs, and now he just knows his facts. He’s very physical, although not the star; he runs, he plays, he’s strong.

So what happens when something’s hard? He quits. Or at least, he tries to. This week, he has come face to face with two “hard” things. Piano has reached the point where it is hard for him. And he doesn’t want to do it anymore.

But I won’t let him quit. Not for the “I’ve paid for it and you’re going to finish it” reason and not even for the “you will take piano until xyz point.” But because some time in life, not everything is going to come easily for him. He is not some scary super genius that will go through life unchallenged. Spending your early school career with one on one tutoring with your mom, having your curriculum tweaked to fit you, and yes, being smart, is not a bad way to go if your going to excel. But as I stress to him, there are always people better at things and worse than things. He will someday find things hard. Something he shouldn’t just quit. Something he should work hard at and have the joy of succeeding at.

Maybe that isn’t piano. But what piano is, is practice at working, doing something hard and getting better. Succeeding, even though it doesn’t come easily.

We have also been swimming more this week. James is terrified of going over his head. It has something he has battled for two years, since some bad swim lessons. Today, he did it. He swam under in an area above his head to retrieve some toys, he jumped in the deep end and swam to the shallow. Today, he was triumphant. Tomorrow, he will be scared again. He will be taking lessons year round, both for safety and for the same joy, the joy of earned success.