[tokyodude]

I don't know where the balance is and I'm not a parent but... I feel like I wish my parents had forced me to learn a musical instrument. My whole fathers side of the family plays/played. Some famiously so. My parents took the "if he shows interest attitude"

I know of almost zero kids that enjoy practicing their instrument as a kid yet I believe the majority of adults are happy for the experience. (I have no data tho). I certainly just wanted to do other things (play with friends) so I showed no or not enough interest for my parents to push/encourge learning an instrument.

Assuming I'm correct following the advice of "see what they're interested in" would seem to lead to worse outcomes at some level.

of course I'm not suggesting shoving things down their throats so to speak rather it seems like there's room for some balance between only encourage their interest and require them to do x?

[gonehome]

Just do it now - an adult can ramp up quickly with focused practice too. Though you’ll still have nobody forcing you to do it. You can probably reach a pretty good ability level in a year or two of taking lessons and practice.

Band instruments will be harder, but piano, guitar, or ukulele are all doable.

[jaggederest]

More importantly, the piano is the instrument of choice for understanding and participating in music theory, which means that with some fundamental understanding and a lot of practice it unlocks many other instruments, as well.

[aikinai]

You're definitely right there's a spectrum and a balance each family has to decide for themselves, but I just wanted to share my anecdotal evidence that there are kids that are passionate about practicing.

My son is learning an instrument from a very young age and almost all of the drive comes from himself. Of course he doesn't always want to practice right now, so we have to push to encourage consistency, but he's so passionate he wants to keep at it even when it's hard work and stressful for all of us.

I'm sure one day, "I don't want to practice today" will evolve into "I want to quit" and I'm dreading having to determine if that's really a life choice or just temporary (week? month? year?) hurdle we should push through.

[ngngngng]

That's one of my internal struggles as I prepare to be a parent. My parents forced me to do soccer and piano, even though I was terrible for years and years. Now i'm a pretty decent soccer player, and very skilled pianist.

I want to give my kids the opportunity to pursue wherever their interests take them, but at the same time, I think most kids could use some pushes to be well rounded. I definitely needed that.

[lmm]

> I know of almost zero kids that enjoy practicing their instrument as a kid yet I believe the majority of adults are happy for the experience. (I have no data tho).

I suspect this is mostly forgetting how miserable the experience of learning was. If learning a musical instrument was net-positive overall, adults would choose to do it. Everyone wants to have learnt an instrument, but no-one wants to put the work in.