“I don’t wanna do this anymore.”
“What do you mean? After I spent 500 bucks on a guitar and all that money on lessons?”
“It’s just not fun anymore.”
“Well, you can forget about college then.”
There may come a time when your talented little tyke might want to throw in the towel. They may discover that the banjo is just not for them; they may have decided that cauliflower ears isn’t a good payoff for years of amateur wrestling. And all this after you spent all that money. It can be frustrating and infuriating. But don’t fret, when you’re raising a talented kid there’s a way of knowing the early signs of burnout, as well as knowing ways to ween them away from completely tapping out…
When you first start something it can be all exciting. It’s kind of like an all-you-can-eat challenge. You get this big stack of pancakes in front of you and you’re like, “Oh, boy, let’s dig in. This is gonna be awesome. Where’s my syrup?” But then 15 minutes later you never want to see pancakes again. This is how it can be with sports or music: the first couple of steps are pretty easy, especially when you get a guitar – it’s like a new toy, “I can’t wait to figure out how this thing works.” But then you reach the learning curve and things get difficult. This is when you really get to find out if they’ve got true passion for something or if it’s just a passing phase.
So as you journey down this road of discovery with your kid you should keep a lookout for some signs of possible burnout.
Get it?
One of the signs of oncoming lassitude is their irritation to the practice schedule. If you’re taking them to lessons they might start acting like it’s putting them out. They might start “forgetting” to practice or exhibit other forms of self-sabotage. Whether this is conscious or unconscious, they might start forgetting their instruments or equipment. At recitals they might start flubbing easy passages or missing shots that they’ve done a million times.
This also may be a result of certain insecurities they’re having. Noticing these insecurities and the tired grind of a schedule might alert you to possible burnout. Simply making some adjustments to the schedule or talking to their teacher about your concerns may help alleviate the problem and, in turn, help them over this initial hump.
You should also try and get to the bottom of what “I quit” really means to them.
I remember back in the day I wanted to quit Cub Scouts because the god damn asshole pack leader kept threatening to send me through the “belt line.”
Alright, so just a quick story on that. Back when I was in Cub Scouts our whole pack had to perform some stupid song at this big Cub Scouts meeting that had all the other packs involved. My role in all this was to do interpretive hand motions to represent what the lyrics were saying, and it was supposed to be me and some other kid doing this. We were supposed to go up, sing some song as a group, me and this other kid did the hand motions, and then we all exchange Christmas gifts afterwards.
Well, the other kid that was supposed to be miming these lyrics didn’t show up that night. So the pack leader’s wife comes up to me and says, “Hey, Chris didn’t show up tonight so you can sit out the song if you want.” Hell yeah I wanted to sit out the song. I didn’t want to sing and I didn’t want to do those hand motions.
Alright, so they perform the song without me and the pack leader is now pissed. So at the next Cub Scout meeting he started saying, “Hey, you know, since you didn’t do that song with the rest of us I might have to send you through the belt line.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, all the kids stand in a line with their legs open, you then crawl through their legs, and as you crawl through their legs they spank you.”
True story, people!
So I let that shit go because I thought he was joking. But then the next week he said it again. And then he said it again. Every Cub Scout meeting he was hanging this threat over my head. So finally I just said, fuck it. I told my mom, “Yeah, I don’t want to go anymore.”
She asked me why but I was just like, “nope, I just don’t want to go anymore.” And that was it. I never went again.
I think the guy eventually died of cancer.
Good.
But I digress. If your kid is involved in sports and he wants to quit the team you might want to look and see if it’s because of bullying or some bullshit like that. And, look, that’s not to say that the kid can’t parlay his/her talent into another area. Just because your kid doesn’t want to play piano anymore doesn’t mean that they will give up on guitar, too.
Remember, that’s what happened to me. I started off on piano. I enjoyed it and everything but after my teacher quit I took up the bass guitar instead. Sure, it ruined my life and sent me down a path of making very little money, but I enjoy it. And now dozens of people know who I am.
Alright, so let’s say that your kid is burned out now. They want to quit. They’ve had enough. What can you do to coax them back into playing? I mean, you feel that this kid is just at a bump in the road and all you have to do is get them over this ordeal to get them back on the path.
One of the things you can do is agree to stick it out for a mutually agreed upon amount of time. Tell them, that you’ve both invested a lot of time already and that you should stick it out for another month or another season. Once that amount of time is up you can revisit the idea of quitting. If they still want to throw in the towel then it might be time that you both try other things.
Up next is the conclusion where we look at the bigger picture.
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This blog is sponsored by Real Simple magazine and by “My Kids Got Talent” by Jennifer King Lindley
If you haven’t checked out the new Cea Serin lyric video, please do so now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFy3iD_zF7k
Our new album will be available Oct. 6th
