What If We Gave Them Time to Grow?

When my younger son was seven, he wanted to learn to play the trumpet.

He was a quiet child. Shy, sensitive and much more comfortable watching what was happening than putting himself at the centre of it. But he was interested in many things. Quietly interested, in his own way.

There was one problem.

He couldn't really sing in tune.

And because of that, he almost didn't get into music school.

It would have been quite easy to stop there. A seven-year-old child, an entrance assessment, one skill that wasn't quite there yet. Perhaps music simply wasn't for him.

Except that he really wanted to try.

So they let him.

And he did well.

He was curious about the pieces he was learning and often wanted to play music that wasn't part of the curriculum. Later, he had the chance to play in an orchestra. The music was lively and enjoyable — but it wasn't easy. He had to practise. He had to learn things that didn't come easily at first.

And somewhere along the way, something else was happening too.

He was becoming more confident.

I don't think it was simply because he learned to play an instrument. I think he found a place where he could see himself as capable. A place where being quiet wasn't a problem and where he didn't have to become a different kind of child before he could succeed.

He was also lucky with his teacher.

When something went wrong, the teacher didn't make a drama out of it. Even during assessments, a mistake was a mistake — not a catastrophe. Then they carried on.

Looking back, I think that mattered enormously.

The expectations were still there. The music wasn't made easier simply to keep everyone happy. Some of the orchestra pieces were genuinely challenging.

But challenge and enjoyment were allowed to exist at the same time.

Perhaps we sometimes forget that.

We tend to create strange opposites: either we expect something from children or we let them enjoy themselves. Either learning is serious or it is fun. Either we evaluate them or we don't care about standards.

But it doesn't have to work that way.

Enjoyment is not the opposite of learning.
And having high expectations does not have to mean creating fear.

My son is older now. He is still himself, of course. But the child who once preferred to stay quietly in the background became increasingly willing to try things, to take part and to trust that he could learn.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if that first snapshot at seven — he can't sing in tune — had been treated as a conclusion about what he was capable of.

Probably nothing dramatic.

One door would simply have closed.

And perhaps that is what interests me most about this story.

How often do we look at what a person can do now and mistake it for what they might be capable of becoming?

A child may need encouragement. They may also need expectations, practice, patience and the experience of getting things wrong.

But perhaps, before deciding who is talented, confident, academic, musical, difficult, shy or simply not good at something, we could leave a little room for what we don't know yet.

We cannot make another person confident.

But we can help create an environment in which confidence has a chance to grow.

And sometimes that may begin with something very small.

Letting them try.