> Being the best at one thing is very different from being good at everything, so it's unclear how that advice applies to your children.
My kid pushes too hard when he realizes he's plateau'd at some skill level and then gets disappointed at the steepness of the learning curve.
It'll go from chess to skiing, then it is swimming and now he's running a trail 10k in March. While he's able to say Good morning in everything from Esperanto to Klingon, by way of Welsh and Japanese, he's not gotten fluent at any language so far.
Not that any of that is bad in itself, but he goes into a maximum-effort "not fun" mode when he gets moderately good at anything.
The "not fun" mode kills the joy and then the activity becomes almost painful.
Mostly I try to help him stay in the happy zones with "A little is enough" instead of setting himself up for failure constantly like this, by failing his own expectations.
The younger one is obviously out to out-compete the older, so hopefully I only have to do this teaching once for both of them.
I'm not a parent and I know very little about it outside of being an old guy, however I wanted to say for whatever it's worth, this is exactly what I imagine great parenting looks like, so kudos.
Sounds like you got a bright child! I think one shouldn't stop a child from exploring many things like that. Not saying you are. I think it just means, that they have not yet found the thing that keeps them coming back for longer time, while they are learning many skills, that can be useful in the future.
Also being a generalist is OK.
Perhaps the best approach is to have conversation with the child, that furthers reflection/introspection. Basically giving the child the tools to notice such patterns themselves and make decisions based on their iwn insight.
That sounds like great parenting, like the kind that figured out what life is about a few times and just passes the wisdom onwards. Reading this made me realize how far I am from being a good parent - I relate more to your child than to you.
Keep up the good work! Parenting is hands down the best thing in the world, ironically, excelling at it goes a really long way.
My kid pushes too hard when he realizes he's plateau'd at some skill level and then gets disappointed at the steepness of the learning curve.
It'll go from chess to skiing, then it is swimming and now he's running a trail 10k in March. While he's able to say Good morning in everything from Esperanto to Klingon, by way of Welsh and Japanese, he's not gotten fluent at any language so far.
Not that any of that is bad in itself, but he goes into a maximum-effort "not fun" mode when he gets moderately good at anything.
The "not fun" mode kills the joy and then the activity becomes almost painful.
Mostly I try to help him stay in the happy zones with "A little is enough" instead of setting himself up for failure constantly like this, by failing his own expectations.
The younger one is obviously out to out-compete the older, so hopefully I only have to do this teaching once for both of them.