AITA for not allowing my daughter to quit piano?

Annie (14) started piano lessons in the summer and has been practicing diligently. After a recital, she expressed wanting to quit due to embarrassment from playing a simple piece compared to her former best friend, Emily. Her parents have a rule that kids must stick with activities for at least a year before quitting, so the father insists she honor that commitment, despite family members suggesting he let Annie quit.

‘ AITA for not allowing my daughter to quit piano?’

Over the summer, my daughter Annie (14) asked for piano lessons. My wife and I were surprised since Annie had never shown any interest in music. But Annie assured us that she was serious. Since she’s a straight A student, we didn’t doubt her.

It’s also important to note that my wife and I have a rule that our kids can participate in any (reasonable) extracurricular activity, but they have to stick with it for a year/season before they can quit (no questions asked if they do quit after the year/season, though). EDIT: Just to make it crystal clear, we’ve never forced Annie and her older siblings into particular extracurriculars. We’ve always given them the freedom to choose which extracurriculars to participate in.

Annie started lessons in right as the school year started. She practices for at least an hour every day, and her teacher has spoken positively to us about her dedication and rapid progress.

Earlier this month, my wife and I went to the end-of-semester recital that Annie’s teacher requires his students to perform in. We thought that she played beautifully, but during the car ride home Annie told us that she wanted to quit piano. I asked why, and she said that she was embarrassed because a. She played the same piece as a 6 year old and b. Emily played a well-known Chopin piece.

Emily is Annie’s former best friend. Since both girls are very competitive and were always at the top of the class, they went from friends to frenemies. AFAIK, they still hang out in larger group settings but not one-on-one.
I reminded Annie of the “no quitting before a year” rule and suggested switching piano teachers if she wanted to avoid playing during the same recital as Emily.

But Annie said that it didn’t matter if she switched teachers because Emily already knew how “bad” she was at piano. Thankfully, my wife is 100% on my side here, but several family members who are w/ us for Christmas have said that I should let Annie quit piano.

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

heepwah −  Eh, you’ve got a highly competitive daughter on hands, she’s self-enforcing perfection on things she does, grades, piano, just from this story. You’ve got a bigger situation than just one year rule you’ve imposed here. She needs to learn that not being best at everything is ok. Expected actually. Don’t make her regret trying things by enforcing arbitrary rule. No easy answers here.

SuperToxin −  NTA but I think the parenting to be done here is that you need to teach your daughter that everyone is different and has different levels of ability and to not get discouraged by it but instead use that emotion to get better and eventually she will be able to perform at a higher level. Teach her that comparison is the t**ef of joy.

LowBalance4404 −  NTA but I think this is two issues in one. The Piano – I agree with the one season/1 year rule. Her teacher is also talking about her rapid progress. Emily – Maybe therapy for your daughter? She’s so young to be so competitive and to quit something because someone else is better than she is. Someone, as we adults know, is always going to be better at something than we are, smarter, prettier, thinner, have bigger boobs or whatever the metric or quality is.

EndlessDreamers −  NAH but your daughter is old enough that the arbitrary rule needs to go and the actual explanation behind it needs to come out. Rules like, “You have to keep to it for a year/season” are fine for younger kids but become pointless barriers as they get older and ask why.

It makes sense to keep kids to things to build resilience. However, she doesn’t want to be a concert pianist, she just wanted to learn to play the piano. She’s hitting a personal roadblock, and the answer is not, “Keep with it because of this rule we enforced” it’s “Keep with this because you like it and are letting someone else ruin something you love.”

You definitely need to deal with the Emily situation, she sounds like a b**ly. Remember, girls b**ly different than boys. She doesn’t need to pull her hair to be a b**ly. She doesn’t even have to directly tease her. If she’s just overly competitive, this is a good lesson to learn. But it shouldn’t be done by forcing her.

TarzanKitty −  YTA. They had the end of semester recital. That counts as a season by your very own rules. Your daughter is 14. That is the time in her life where she should be exploring different things until she finds her passion.

Acrobatic_Hippo_9593 −  Try applying that same rule to yourself. “I think I might enjoy golfing.” So you sign up for lessons. You discover that you actually hate golfing. Too bad, you have to do it for the next year of your life anyway.
“I think I might like woodworking,” turns out you don’t like woodworking. But you now have to do it for an entire year.

“I think I want to try playing in an adult soccer league,” so you sign up. You discover you’re pretty bad at it, and don’t like it. You stick it out until the end of that season because they have to have a specific number of players and you’d be screwing the entire team over if you quit. You’re relived when it’s over. But, then you remember that you’re going to have to sign up for fall season because you have to do this for an entire year.

A year, for a child, feels far longer than it does for us. From Kindergarten through their senior year of high school they get 12 years. That gives her the opportunity to try 12 things, knowing that if she doesn’t like them she will have to do them anyway.

It’s one thing to encourage them to give something a little more time before deciding they hate it (you don’t walk away from golf because the first few lessons are frustrating and miserable, but it doesn’t take 10 weekly lessons to know you don’t like it and don’t want to continue.

Yea, YTA for forcing her to continue. She gave it a good go. She made it to the recital. She doesn’t want to keep going. Why would you pay to force her to continue something she doesn’t like?
That’s also really not fair to the teacher who will have to deal with that.

CuriousEmphasis7698 −  YTA. Forcing Annie to continue the activity will lead to her hating it and resenting you. Your one year rule is, I will be blunt, stupid. If she doesn’t enjoy playing, feels belittled and embarrassed by it, etc making her continue won’t help that situation. All you are teaching her is that if someone with power over her decides she has to do something that makes her miserable she has no choice but to take it. That is not actually a lesson that you want a 14 year old girl learning.

LucifersLady666 −  INFO: Who is this rule really for, you or your child? Is making your child do anything for a year to prove they really enjoy it? Or is it to justify the money spent? Because I would think the money saved from allowing to quit would then go to something she does enjoy.. Edited for judgment: YTA.

Lanternestjerne −  YTA in the way that you do not approach the issue correctly. For you as a parent is is about a 1 year rule. For your daughter it is lesson in life about someone being better OR having played the piano longer. Who is Emily and how long has she been playing the piano. You need to tell your daughter that it takes practice to reach a certain level.

km89 −  NTA, but you’re approaching this wrong. You need to walk the line here between exerting too much control over her life, and being a parent. Just saying “you’re required to stick this out for a year” is approaching exerting too much control over her life, depending on the circumstances.

Instead, you should be teaching her how to handle these feelings of inadequacy and how to live her life without comparing herself to others. Yeah, she’s playing the same song as a 6-year-old, but it sounds like she’s only been doing this for a few months. And there will always be someone better than her at something or other (as is true of literally everyone who isn’t the best in the world at something), so help her to understand that she can and should do things that she enjoys without regard for how good or bad others are.