<p>I was kind of a lazy parent and I also read a lot of unschooling boards, so I actually was a fairly hands off parents. Both kids had private music lessons, younger son longer than he really wanted except it was a requirement of the orchestra he was a part of. Both dropped soccer when it got too competitive to be fun. They both spent hours of their childhood in our enormous sandbox with a hose because I remember that being the best part of my childhood. When the oldest got interested in computers we answered his questions, but he set the pace for teaching himself programming. He was lucky that his interests made him highly employable. The jury is still out on whether we hit the happy medium or if a little more nudging might have been helpful.</p>
<p>Although dh is a total workaholic, mostly because of the horrific grant situation where only the top 5% of grants get funded, but the kids were exposed to hiking, non-competitive sailing, living in a cabin without electricity in Vermont etc. And we always set a good example of lying around reading books for fun.</p>