Neurotic? Why the need to insult my wife? What the hell do you know about her, other than impressions derived from a reconstructed conversation?
And who said it was a fight? It was a discussion, plain, pure and simple.
Shit… mods, just kill this thread. I should have known better than to start it in the first place.
I agree with you that if she isn’t enjoying it, there’s nothing wrong in not doing it. After all, life is short and if this isn’t for school, she should be able to devote time to finding an activity that she likes. Chess isn’t for everyone and maybe there’s something else out there that she’ll really love.
Books can be useful for parenting but you know your own kid and you know when it’s time to listen to “the experts” and when you need to adapt the situation to your child’s needs.
I came in here expecting this to be advice to parents. I’m about ready to give up on my 14 year old.
But as for what the thread’s really about…Life’s to short to spend time doing stuff you’re not interested in. In that case it’s not really giving up as much as not spending time on stuff you’re just not interested in. I don’t skin live cats or design award-winning living room furniture because I couldn’t care less about that stuff. Doesn’t make me a quitter.
I actively encourage my kids to try new things, and then to stick with them for a “reasonable” amount of time. If *I *am the one that thinks something is important, then I will do my best to help, convince, bribe or otherwise get the China Bambina to buy in.
art was one that was painful for a while but China bambina loves it and has a real talent for it. Glad we stuck with that one. She also simply refused to learn to play the piano after 2 lessons (“practice for 5 minutes and then you can watch cartoons all weekend” “that’s ok, I won’t watch TV ever again in my life”)
My dad thought tennis was pretty cool. He picked up some really heavy old wooden rackets from a garage sale and a can of cheap tennis balls and would harass us about going to play tennis with him.
Both my sister and I are near sighted, wear glasses, and have depth perception problems. I am not good at any physical activity that requires an extension of my arms, like tennis, raquetball, baseball, softball, golf… I can’t tell exactly where the damn ball is to hit it because of some sort of effect the glasses have. (Like spearfishing- the refraction I think it is, in the water makes the fish look like it’s two inches away from where you think it is.)
Nevermind what our actual skills and talents were; if it was interesting to dad, it oughta be interesting to us. So he’d drag us to the tennis courts and proceed to whack balls at us. I would just chase them around because I could never get to the stupid ball in time to hit it. He either did not know the rules of tennis or forgot to explain them, because he never mentioned them. To this day, I have no clue how to actually play tennis within the rules. No idea what the rules are or how that nonsensical scoring system worked.
I begged and begged and begged and begged for dance lessons and musical instrument lessons. I was not allowed to have either, nor was I allowed to get an instrument and take the music classes at school. That would be a financial expenditure that was out of the question.
So I’m a bit bitter about this. I think kids should be encouraged to keep trying at that in which they’ve shown interest, but never forced to participate in things not of their own choosing. All that does is breed resentment.
BTW, I now take dance classes as an adult. Pole dancing. 
And no, my dad does not know. ETA: And yes, I still hate tennis.
I don’t have kids so take this for what it’s worth. I did do a lot of ‘math team’ type stuff when I was in grade school … though I never actually played on a chess team so maybe I’m doubly unqualified to post here. Regardless –
Yeah, I agree with you, loosing at chess all the time sucks. If it were a sport that would be different, at least with sports you get to run around, burn off some energy, etc. And if the other kids are held to some minimal standard of sportsmanship then you still get the occasional ‘Good swing!’. But chess, you stare at the board and then you loose. Repeat game after game, that’s just … not fun at all.
Again, I never was on a chess team but I can’t imagine playing in a room with other kids makes it any less of a miserable experience. If your wife is so into chess (eta: or the idea of ‘chess team’) then maybe she should start asking your daughter to play chess with her at home, just for fun.
I have somewhat mixed feelings about this. No one should be forced to keep on with something they actively dislike. On the other hand, I quit piano lessons when I was ten, and really regret that now. I had this idea that if I wasn’t great at it, I’d never be good at it, so I thought I was wasting my time (this was as much about self-esteem as anything else). But hello, i was TEN. It was too early to know if I’d improve with another few years of practice or not. Most ten-year-olds aren’t virtuoso prodigies.
So now that I’m more seriously involved in music/performance: I can’t play any instruments, my sight-reading skills are decent but very basic, and I’ve long since forgotten any music theory, which means I can’t compose even if I hear a tune clearly in my head.
I tried to re-learn some of this in college but was largely unsuccessful. There just wasn’t enough time to make up for all the years I let it languish.
So there’s something to be said for pushing through. She’s nine. She’s not going to be great at chess yet. Maybe you should talk to her and ask her why she wants to quit/doesn’t want to practice.
I recently read an article (and dammit, I can’t find it now) that discussed the fundamental difference between how boys and girls approach learning (mostly as a result of how they are approached about learning). Because of the general tendency to respond to girls when they succeed (“You’re so smart”) and respond to boys when they don’t (“You could get this if you apply yourself”), girls end up thinking that their skills are inherent, and can’t be learned/built upon, while boys end up thinking that anything they don’t master right away, can be mastered with effort and practice. So it’s quite possible that because your daughter isn’t good at chess now, she believes that she will always be bad at chess, because it’s not a natural skill and it just doesn’t occur to her that it can be learned.
Anyway, something to consider.
Are you trying to make a meta-point about giving up? 
Anyway. Some anecdata from my parents’ experience with my sister and me. They were pretty hyperactive ultra-parenting sorts, the kind who were worried about college, let alone high school, when I was 9.
-My sister and I started musical training from a very young age. We did it a lot and we liked it and we were very good at it. My sister asked to give it up multiple times because she didn’t like practicing, although she loved to play, and my parents wouldn’t let her. She later wrote a college essay about how that was completely the right thing to do, and we both think, as adults, that it was completely the right thing to do.
-I asked to take ballet, which I thought would be really awesome, at about 9 years old. I absolutely, positively hated everything about it. My parents made me finish out the year but then let me quit. I was relieved then and am still relieved as an adult that they let me quit.
-My parents insisted my sister and I learn a sport. (See: worried about college, above, but also I think they worried a lot I was a sedentary bookworm.) Since I had no preference, they picked tennis for me. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t much like it either. They wouldn’t let me quit because they thought it was really important that I do some sort of sport. If I had really hated it, I suppose they would have let me quit had I picked another sport to do. I have mixed feelings about this. I suppose I’m glad they made me stick with it, as now I know how to play tennis, but on the other hand, since I don’t like it, I almost never play, so it seems like kind of a waste.
The whole point of this rambling is that I agree with you, JohnT, and I think your wife may be taking the parenting books a little out of context. (And didn’t having a baby teach both of you that no parenting book works more than 50% of the time? My baby refuses to conform to more than half of any given book, anyway.)
Son, 6 six years old, wants to play t-ball because all the kids are doing it. I sign him up, we go to the first game and it’s astoundingly boring. He asks on the way home if he has to stick it out. I say no way and he never went to another game.
Son, 10 years old, signs up for swim team because his sister likes it. He is astoundingly bad and after half a season asks to quit. Fine, no more swim team.
Son, 12 years old, discovers cross country running on his own. Loves it, does it middle school, high school and in college. Also discovers fencing, same. Also discovers biathalon and excels.
I’m not getting all the “you have to stick to it for so long then you can quit.” I wouldn’t put myself thru that torture. Why do it to a kid when 6 months or a year seems like the rest of their life to them?
Maybe I’m jaundiced because my older brother was forced to play little league baseball after he initially signed up and he hated everyday of it because it was so competitive. And yet he was forced to continue because you can’t be a quitter. He never asked to be in any sport again.
Homer Simpson
If your reply was to me you missed the point. It’s not that it’s hard, it’s that if it’s no fun and doesn’t fit your personality what’s the point in continuing? My bro and I played pick up ball with the neighborhood kids all the time. It was fun, it was exercise, it was team building. Rigid/competitive little league was NOT fun for him, he was not good at it, but was forced to continue in order to “Man up, not GIVE up.”
My kids did not end up Simpson’s couch potatos because I let them quit sports/activities they signed up for and subsequently found they disliked or were not interested in.
I wish I would have learned this at an earlier age myself. There are a lot of books I slogged thru because I had the mistaken impression that if you start you need to finish. Hahahahahaha. I want my Moby Dick hours back.
It’s also not bad to learn that there are some things in life you’re not good at, need to put on your game face, and get through the damn thing. It’s one of many good life skills.
I also don’t think it’s black and white. If things definately are NOT working out then the parent should re-assess.
sinjin, obviously you did something right because you’re son learned some things he has a passion for and has stuck with. I think your examples were all pretty good and not a pattern of stopping at the first whine.
“Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is…never try.”
The standard advice I like to give is this. Your kid is not going to be a grand master chess player. Most likely, they are never going to be a professional or olympic athlete, CEO of a Fortune 500 company, A list television star, Broadway singer, Bilboard top 40 musician or a movie star. They aren’t going to start a billion dollar web site. They aren’t going to be President of the USA.
If they by some miracle of statistics do become one of these things, it will most likely have nothing to do with any advice or coaching you give them. The reason for that is, unless I miss my guess, you and the Mrs happen to be none of those professions either.
So what qualifies you to give advice on being anything other than growing up into another regular ole upper middle class person?
Extraordinary success generally requires extraordinary passion. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t start Facebook because his parents forced him to learn the violin. Barack Obama didn’t become President because his parents made him learn chess.
What I would suggest, however, is that you encourage your daughter to find something that she DOES like and want to spend time doing (and the rule is once you sign up, you have to finish out the season). Even trying something different each month is better than wasting your time watching tv, surfing the web and playing videogames.