[crawfordcomeaux]

So the lesson you learned wasn't that you had the power to choose what you learned and how to do so responsibly?

Did you instead learn these things?:

• exercising that power could lead to you losing a skill

• doing so is bad

• you don't have the power to choose your own course corrections when you notice a skill waning

Based on your suggestion that children need to be controlled, I think your experience was limited and too short.

[wyattpeak]

I grant I learned all of those things, but I think pretty well everyone learns those things by adulthood, and I don't think my forgetting a language especially honed my understanding of those points.

I don't even know if you're arguing in good faith, because your second dot point isn't really a thing that even a child needs to learn.

I'll also thank you not to suggest that our differences of opinion are due to your superior understanding of my upbringing.

[crawfordcomeaux]

I agree...I think those are things we're culturally taught, typically implicitly and not explicitly.

And I don't assume to have an understanding of your upbringing. That's why I was posing it all as questions. The points I made are things I think can potentially hinder learning and are commonplace in society.

[ygaf]

You ultimately have to want the skill. The gp would have noticed his skill gradually waning, not suddenly when it had gone, yet as a kid he didn't care for it.

[dasyatidprime]

How would you notice a skill waning if you aren't using it at the time?

[ygaf]

You're right, I don't know what actual skill I had in mind there (one are you are no longer trained in but still use). I meant to say, even when a kid is wise to the danger of not taking lessons, they don't know what subjects are best for them or how many different ones must be pursued.

[crawfordcomeaux]

I think the key is to teach them a way to integrate whatever they learn into a joyful life that strives to contribute to all other life.

Teach them to tap into intuition, ask (not demand) for help when support is needed, and learn how to learn.