I have one child in preschool and another that just entered second grade. They go to a progressive school that focuses on inquiry based learning, and the most i

I have one child in preschool and another that just entered second grade. They go to a progressive school that focuses on inquiry based learning, and the most important metric is that they seem engaged and enthusiastic about school every day. The bigger picture is that not every kid is the same, and that's shaped by the child and also the parents. Our parenting style is a combination of firmness around core behaviors coupled with plenty of freedom beyond that. It's obvious when interacting with other kids and parents that other people have very different styles. Some of the other things other kids do, like behaving crazily at the dinner table, we would shut down immediately. Other things, like putting their 2nd graders into "Kumon," a kind of cram school with lots of busy-worksheets, we avoid. Check out the messaging and branding here to get some idea: https://www.kumon.com/ https://www.kumon.com/. Apparently on the first day of Kumon they show kids the logo and tell them that the kid isn't smiling because learning is not fun, it is supposed to be hard work. I found it horrifying that parents felt the need to push their kids into that kind of environment to "keep up". On the other hand, the progressive school is definitely touchy-feely and there's a sense that there's less structured learning. Fortunately it seems there's a balanced approach as they get into higher grades where progressive units of inquiry are augmented with some book learning. It takes an act of faith to believe that this will ultimately pay off - that they are not "wasting their time" just playing all day. Who wants to gamble with their kid's future? Outside of school, we try to think "anticipate and encourage" not "force feed". For example, when we visited friends and our son always gravitated towards playing with the piano, we got him a keyboard and let him play with it at home. Soon enough he was asking "why don't I have a piano teacher?". So we got him one. He generally likes it, and practices largely on his own with just a few reminders. On the other hand, we took him to play soccer and after two games where he refused to step foot on the green, he insisted "I don't like any games with balls. Except dodgeball." So we didn't force it, but we did have him go to martial arts, which he enjoys. Maybe we'll have him try out socceer or baseball in the future - but only if he shows an interest. The same goes for reading. We put lots of books in the house and also spend our own time reading physical books, so they can see us. They get curious what we're doing when we're not paying attention to them. While they aren't as advanced as some of the other kids in class, they are enjoying reading every time they pick up a book. And that's all we want.