why does a child need to break through a plateau at anything?
Of my five sample size of five, expose them and support them, some things can’t even hook you until your brain grows enough .. The musical one is in a band now the nerdy one likes inhaling solder. I did force both boys to Hockey but just to have passable skills so that he can enjoy that all that comes with the sport as an adult
> why does a child need to break through a plateau at anything?
Learning that they can hit a plateau and move beyond it with concerted effort is super important. After you've done it once, you can look back on that experience for inspiration when there's a plateau that you want/need to move beyond.
Having experience with struggling with something that is easy for some others is important too. Some kids are just naturally good at a lot of things when they're younger; which is nice in some ways, but makes it hard to learn skills to deal with challenges... It's great when they find something that challenges them (even if it doesn't seem great to them in the moment). Other kids have a hard time with most things; you've got to look out for things they can be good at.
The current trend, at least in Germany, is that as soon as a kid says "I do not want anymore.", this is normal to stop. With that, the kids do not have the experience that it can be hard, but going through can bring something.
Resilience, capacity to go through ups and downs, etc. are things you train by being exposed to it. If your life is only fun and joy as kid, the day you are hit hard as an adult, you have no training.
But, this is my very personal point of view, education is very personal and very context specific, every family is different (country, culture, education, etc.) and in every family education is difficult from one kid to another. I am not trying to tell you how to educate your kids.
This does need to be anchored in value though. They should be at least playing a part in deciding what those things are before they're pushed to persevere towards them.
> why does a child need to break through a plateau at anything?
Exactly! Why? The few things I do better than most people are things I've stayed engaged with during those plateaus because I wanted to, not because someone else told me I should or that it was important. The people who respond positively to being forced into things generally end up not knowing who _they_ are, and end up generally unwell people.
I feel false dichotomy here - you assume helping child to go through plateau must be forced.
It doesn’t have to be and some people need a little bit of help - you didn’t and that’s great.
Conversely there will be kids that need to be forced or nothing good will come out of them - there will be kids that should be left alone because pushing them will just break whatever they should be doing.
It is delicate balance and difficult choices - but there is no white and black here that will be right for everyone.
Yeah I didn't mean to suggest this dichotomy. And I agree with you. Just not sure how much you can force people, even the ones who "need" to be forced. Or what "good" will come out of that. Good in my mind is a person who knows themselves, is functional, and is comfortable in their own skin. That is, a person who won't lead a life of total suffering, which seems pretty common!
