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> So there's a trade off between trying to offer easy but limited success with some entertainment value, and going the whole way and doing it properly - which a

> So there's a trade off between trying to offer easy but limited success with some entertainment value, and going the whole way and doing it properly - which all but the most musical kids get very bored by, because it's such hard work. I think the value is in option #1. My son is 5 years old and just started grade 1; his best friend at school has two parents who are quite musical, and so he's been taking violin lessons. Thanks to COVID, he was stuck in the house, bored, all summer, and decided to spend basically the whole time practicing (mind you, the kid is barely 6) and now he's way beyond the other kids his age and is extremely proud of what he's accomplished. Conversely, my son hates fine motor skill activities; he's not good at them, so he doesn't want to do them, so he doesn't get good at them. We couldn't convince him to practice drawing, writing his letters, anything; he didn't want anything to do with it. Until, that is, we told him (not entirely falsely) that improving his ability to use a pen, pencil, marker, etc. with precision would also help his ability to use a Switch joy-con thumbstick with more precision. Last year, in kindergarden, he would get extremely (disruptively) upset when he even thought it would soon be time to do art, drawing, letters, whatever. Now he starts every morning in class by drawing. There are other things he could be doing, apparently, but he draws, every morning, because the idea of getting better at video games got him over his initial resistance to try something new that he wasn't good at and to improve at it. I doubt I could ever get him to really practice piano, or to even get him interested in it, but if I put something in front of him that showed him how to play the Super Mario Bros theme I think he'd be pretty excited about it. I think I'll try this afternoon. Sometimes it's not about getting great; sometimes it's not even about getting good. Sometimes it's just about starting in the first place.

toast0 6y ago
> Conversely, my son hates fine motor skill activities; he's not good at them My motor skills are _fine_, and I had a lot of issues with that throughout schooling (especially cursive, grrr, but drawing/art was also hard), but I played a string instrument (bass, and guitar), and didn't feel the same kind of frustration with that. I mean, chords are hard and kind of frustrating, but I think that's true for everyone. Piano and fretted guitars have the bonus that you can't be off pitch, as long as you hit the right one. Moving a pencil on a page is a lot different, you have to push down enough, but not too much, while making shapes in the right sequence, and you have to fit in the lines, etc, etc. UGH. Hitting the keys with the right strength is important for piano, but at a beginner level, just doing it not too hard is enough.

toast0 6y ago

> Conversely, my son hates fine motor skill activities; he's not good at them My motor skills are _fine_, and I had a lot of issues with that throughout schooling (especially cursive, grrr, but drawing/art was also hard), but I played a string instrument (bass, and guitar), and didn't feel the same kind of frustration with that. I mean, chords are hard and kind of frustrating, but I think that's true for everyone. Piano and fretted guitars have the bonus that you can't be off pitch, as long as you hit the right one. Moving a pencil on a page is a lot different, you have to push down enough, but not too much, while making shapes in the right sequence, and you have to fit in the lines, etc, etc. UGH. Hitting the keys with the right strength is important for piano, but at a beginner level, just doing it not too hard is enough.