Totally agree - and, generally, the adults I know who were raised this way may be super talented but have so little creativity - at music school I knew this Kor

Totally agree - and, generally, the adults I know who were raised this way may be super talented but have so little creativity - at music school I knew this Korean violinist who was just amazing classical player, she could tell you the pitch of the brake squeal on a subway, but watching her try to improvise was painful. There's a lot of pressure from other parents to compare kids, I think that's how that culture perpetuates at least here in the US. I just don't play that game. (edit) This is also why I hate standardized testing which places kids is "advanced" and "normal" (implicitly slow) classes - everyone develops at their own rates, but the system implicitly assumes that early advancement rates are indicative of future advancement rates, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.