<p>
This reminds me of an event: At one time, DS was invited to his friend’s house for a “jam” sesson at his house. We were there and very soon a very loud music was made from this “band”. We did not see his friend’s parents at first and I had a little bit concern that it might be too loud. Even though it would not bother the neighbor (whose house is at some distance from his house), it might be “bothering” the parents who were upstairs.</p>
<p>His parents came downstairs later on, and made a comment like “This house is rarely full of such a high energy. It makes me feel young again.”</p>
<p>Something interesting (if not disgusting) here: This friend was once in our house and played music with several of the friends. At one time, he tried to find a nearby quiet spot to come up with same catchy tune. He ended up going into a rest room and staying there for quite a while. When these teenagers were together for this kind of activity (they were high schoolers back then), mostly during weekend or the break, they were often together in the house for 6 or 7 hours on that day! It appears to be a deep fun for them.</p>
<p>I do not know whether (and how often) DS continued doing this in college. But occasionally, we noticed on youtube that some of his friends and he played on the street near the campus and somebody recorded it. At one time, they played in the Spring Fling event (before those invited musicians played.)</p>
<p>When a child has developed some deep interest in something, he or she will be willingly do it all by himself/herself without any push. Actually, you could hardly stop him/her from doing what he/she likes to do.</p>
<p>The hard part is how to jumpstart his interest on anything. Something that could help in this regard is that it is better not to assign a “practical value” or to set up a “goal” for this activity (e.g., Doing this would help me get into an ivy school.) Just enjoys the process itself and see where it will lead you. We also provided many resources for getting into some activities. Many of our efforts are in vain and DS was not interested in it. But once in a while, it was a hit and he started to get involved with this. A good nature of DS is that once he is interested in something, he would spend significant efforts on it over a long time, unlike some other kids.</p>
<p>Regarding “following the child around”, DS and his mother were extremely close as she drove him around town (or out of town) for various activies from, say, 2 years old (story time for toddler in a public library) to almost the end of his high school. For DS’s music lesson (we were lucky to snap a time slot on Saturday), both parents were always there when DS took the lesson, for likely 12 years.</p>