Should children have to wait to sign up for lessons or sports? What do you think?
I'm Nicholeen Peck and I'm the mother of four previous foster parents of many boy, have I ever
had children in a lot of lessons and sports. I also teach parenting through the lens of self
government all over the world. And in this video, we're going to be talking about how to prepare
your child to succeed in whatever lesson or sport they're pursuing.
Sometimes, it's good to notice right when your child is excited about something and let them join in that activity. But sometimes,
it's best to tell them no. In this video, we're going to be talking about the academic no, and the
social no. And when you should tell them know what that can do for them and their overall excitement.
And then also, when it's a good idea to tell them yes, and just dive in. The first thing we have to
talk about is whose idea is it for this lesson or sport? Is it your idea or is it their idea?
I remember my grandmother taught piano, she was a renowned musician, and pianist. And she said that
she would always teach her grandchildren piano lessons, for free. So because of that, my mom was
like, Woohoo, we are going to have all of you guys take piano lessons. And so it was no question. We
had to take piano, every one of the five of us had to take piano, whether we liked it or not. Now,
here's the thing is she did let us know that we couldn't take piano until we were seven. So
many of us wanted to start piano beforehand. We knew grandma would teach us we also knew
older siblings were taking piano. And that seemed really exciting. So I remember when I was five,
asking my mom, can I please take piano? Can I please? And she said, Nope, you can't take piano
until your seventh. Grandma says you have to be good at reading first before you can take the
piano. Now, I know not all musicians follow that. But that was one of my grandma's rules is that a
person couldn't start until they were seven, I think unless they were a real prodigy. But
she didn't do the Suzuki style. She did more of a classical style of piano training. So anyway,
I had to wait until I was seven. This was a no, it was an academic no. And it made me want the piano,
I would watch my brother play the piano, I would watch my mother play the piano,
I would watch grandma play the piano. And I wanted to be able to sit at my other grandma's house and
play for everybody because she always praised everyone who could play piano. And all I could
do was sing little songs. But I really wanted to have that skill. So because I waited for two whole
years before I was allowed to sign up, then it meant a lot more to me. So I actually think that
waiting for my grandmother was actually smart. It made me want to do it. Now later on, I got to the
point where I didn't want to practice and I wanted to quit and my mom didn't let me quit until
whenever. But that's a video for another day. In fact, I have another video all about should you
let them quit or not? So be sure to find that one. But this video is all about when should you let
them start. So are you the one that wants them to do it? My mother was the one that wanted me to do
it. But then she got me to want to do it too. If your child wants to do it, then you really should
look at following through. If just you want them to do it, you need to be sure that you understand
the principle for what why you're wanting to do that. And hopefully help them develop a craving
or a love for it if it's something you want them to accomplish. So if you don't play piano or any
musical instrument, but you want your child to be musical, then what you'd want to do is go to
a lot of concerts and things ahead of time and go hear people play the piano, get them in love with
that you want them to love good music, they have to be exposed to it, you're not going to you know,
let them listen to the wheels on the bus go round and round forever and then hope that they love
piano music, right? If they were raised on pop music, which is something less than classical
music, no offense to anybody out there, but it is and in its intricacies and stuff like that,
then they're not going to ever want that. So you have to decide what's the principle, why do they
need it? How do I cultivate the love for it, but if you just force it, then you might not get the
results that you're looking for. So keep that in mind. So when are they ready? And what do how do
we do this academic note? We're going to talk about that but for click the subscribe button
now. This channel is for you to learn all the things that you need for self government for your
family. So we're going to talk about the academic no, and how to help your child build excitement,
and a sense of follow through once you start that activity, whatever it is the sport or the lesson,
the class may be that they're wanting to take, let's say they want to start taking a painting
class, and you feel like you're not sure if they are ready yet for the painting class.
There is like this magical window of where you can say no, and build more excitement.
And then it crosses over a line where they just decide they're never doing it again. And you don't
want to get to that place. If you want your child to take ownership for the class, the assignments
in the class, the follow through, the practicing for the sport, or the musical instrument,
or whatever it is, then you want them to be excited about it. If they come to you and say,
Mom, I really want to do painting say that's great, honey, how about we watch a Bob Ross thing
and see what we can do with it, see how good we are at painting. So you start testing it out and
testing it out. And then you say, you know, he is so good. Wouldn't you like to learn from somebody
like that? Yes, Mom, I want to take painting. Yeah, that would be really fun, I'll have to find
a person. But in the meantime, let's just keep working on it. Maybe you and I can do painting
with Bob Ross, or whoever it is, whatever tutorial you're following. Maybe we can do painting for,
you know, once a week, every Thursday night, me and you do painting for a little while until I
find somebody that I feel like is the perfect person for us. So then you start looking but
you take your sweet time to make sure that the child is fully invested in this, it wasn't just a
passing fancy that they're going to be done within a couple of days, you'll know if you want to test
it out with them, and they don't talk about it, think about it work on it outside of the time that
you're you know, doing it with them. If it's just a social thing with you, or after they've done a
couple of pictures they're done, then you'll know it's probably not the best thing to start yet,
you may be cultivating something that could come back around later. So then if they do continue
to show an interest, then you finally sign them up for something. But having that no in place
or that way for a little bit or if you say yes, you can do that when you are nine, or you can do
that after we take these other lessons first, because before you can be on the swim team,
we got to first teach you how to swim. So we're going to do two weeks of lessons. And then we'll
go swimming all summer long. And then if you want to sign up still for the age group swim team,
then we will sign up for the age group swim team and you can be on that with your friends. So give
them that no, push them off just a little bit. Now another thing that can come with giving a no is
they can start to make plans for themselves. So you can say, they could invest a little bit more
into it like even financially, you could say How about you help earn some of the money for this
by doing some jobs around the house. So you could kind of test to see how dedicated they really are,
do they want to do some jobs around the house, you know, for a few days to earn a little bit
of money to maybe buy those tap shoes, or those shin guards or something and then you say you buy
the shin guards and if you can buy the shin guards, then I will buy the shoes and pay for
the team and all the other stuff with it. But I want to see that you really want to do this,
you know, or maybe they practice soccer skills or something like that for a certain period of
time and they put tally marks on a sheet and then after they do so many hours of practice,
then they get those shin guards and they earn them that way. You know, however you want to
work it out. But that no really does motivate the child. Now here's the other thing. Sometimes an
immediate, yes, though, is just what is needed as well. So I had a son who really fell in love
with barbershop music, that acapella harmony, it just spoke to him. And when he was 10 years old,
he saw a concert that his grandpa performed and in fact I was actually in it as well. And he got a CD
from this barbershop quartet group that was like world renowned, okay. And he went down in his
room and he listened to the CD again and again and again, trying to pick out the tenor part in that
CD because you know, as a young boy, he's a tenor, that's all he could hit was the tenor right. And so he
was trying to key into that. After days and weeks of working on this he came to me and he said,
Mom, I want to sing barbershop. I will quit every sport, I will quit basketball. I will
quit soccer. I'll quit all of it. If I can sing barbershop. Now I knew he had been in his room
working on this, he'd been putting into practice, he'd been thinking about it, talking about it,
singing it around the house in his spare time. He really wanted it. And he was willing to sacrifice
all of his sports. You know what I did? I let him sacrifice his sports. I said, Okay,
talk to dad and see if he'll go with you because you got to have another guy to take you there
as a sponsor. Otherwise, you can't join this international group, and you're gonna have to
try out and everything and he'd been singing in choirs before this, he quit the choirs. He quit
even after a while some of his other music lessons is individual voice lessons. After
a while he stayed with him for a while, he quit the choir. And then he went and try it out. But
I did that immediately because I could see it truly was something deep in him that he needed,
and that he wanted right then and he was willing to make a big sacrifice. And I wanted him to see
that his sacrifice was either worth it or not. And the only way for him to see that was for it
to immediately happen. So we immediately took action on that one. And it was one of the best
things we did. To this day, he is 27 now and he still loves to sing acapella harmonies,
and he's been in so many acapella groups. It's been amazing. It was a key part of who he became
as a person and I felt it. Now as a parent, remember, I said you get to feel inspiration
for your child. Nobody gets the inspiration like you do. So if you feel who this one's a key part
to who they are, then just jump on it. But if you think ooh, this is something that they're getting
interested in. But let's see if we can get them excited about it, then maybe give them that no,
it is okay to take either approach. If you feel a certain feeling about what that child needs,
your inspiration as the parent is the top priority for the child. If you've enjoyed this video,
I know you're gonna love my next video, which is should parents let their kids quit sports or
lessons. So definitely look at that video next, so that you can decide when enough is enough.