Do you push and shove your children?\u00a0 Or just let them get on with growing up?\u00a0 I can’t work it out.\u00a0 I mean, Mozart would be a nobody if it weren’t for his ultra-pushy dad, making him practice from an early age.\u00a0 And would Tiger Woods or\u00a0Serena Williams\u00a0have made it into the sporting pantheon without their dads’ discipline?\u00a0 Even if you recognise this, you’ll also know that living a fulfilled, meaningful and happy life has nothing to do with extreme achievement.\u00a0 The monster swots at school rarely distinguish themselves later on.\u00a0 Even those genius children who pop up in the newspapers for getting into Oxford to read Quantum Physics at 12 sometimes grow up to find life difficult down the line.\u00a0 So what’s the goal with your kids?\u00a0 A love of learning, of knowing stuff, of finding out about things –\u00a0to me, this\u00a0is what gives a life its richness and texture.\u00a0 And the more learning that’s done outside the classroom, the better.\u00a0 Pen in hand, behind a desk, it can all seem rather B-O-R-I-N-G unless you have an inspirational teacher.\u00a0 But through books, films, kitchen experiments, trips to museums, interesting chats in the car – you get my drift –\u00a0 you can really help develop a curiosity about the world and an enquiring mind.\u00a0 And this stays with you for a lifetime.\u00a0 A nice thing to give your children, I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you push and shove your children?\u00a0 Or just let them get on with growing up?\u00a0 I can’t work it out.\u00a0 I mean, Mozart would be a nobody if it weren’t for his ultra-pushy dad,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n