Question: My 12-year old daughter, Abby, is a promising pianist, but she wants to quit. She’s also a keen swimmer and an A student, but she’s spending too much of her time on social media and just hanging out with friends. I don’t want her to become a quitter, and am worried she’ll regret it later if she gives up on her musical talent. How can I discourage her from socializing so much, and make sure she keeps up with her musical training? Answer: It’s wonderful that you’re so supportive in encouraging Abby to develop her areas of talent, but it would be good if you recognized her need to develop her social intelligence, too.

I’d start by talking with her about why she wants to quit piano, and discussing alternative solutions with her. Maybe she’d be happy with a reduced musical workload, with fewer demands on her time. Maybe a change of teachers would solve whatever problem she’s trying to address by quitting piano. Maybe she’d like a change of focus, from classical to pop, say, or something similar. Or maybe it’s time to branch out into a different kind of musical activity—maybe she’d like to join a choir or band.

If, however, Abby insists on quitting music altogether, you can reframe it as a hiatus from her music education. That might help you both see it as a temporary break, rather than a permanent one, and might speed up her return to her musical studies at a later date.

Regardless of how she proceeds with her music, it would help if you recognized that Abby’s time on social media and just hanging out with friends might be time well spent. Like everyone else at early adolescence (11 to 14), she’s undergoing change in every aspect of her life, including her body, her emotions, and her brain, as well as her sense of autonomy, her connection to family and community, and so much more. It’s a time of intense focus on her identity: she’s thinking hard about who she is, and who she is in connection with others.

Abby is at an age when—especially for girls—social activities become more important than ever. Social skills are critical to self-awareness, self-esteem, success, and fulfillment in every area of life. And social intelligence—knowledge, understandings and habits in personal and interpersonal areas—requires as much focused attention as any other important area of learning, whether it’s mathematics or music.

And in order to make room for this intense focus on social learning, something has to give. For lots of kids, it’s academics. They stop being interested in school, and their grades drop. For others, it’s one or more of their extracurricular interests. Many kids who give up on a serious interest during this period come back to that interest later in their lives, with renewed appreciation and energy.

Abby has proved and continues to prove that she’s not a quitter. If she’s an A student and a serious swimmer as well as a talented pianist, she’s demonstrated that she knows how to work hard and has good work habits. It sounds like she’s applying those attributes to her social learning. If so, this investment of her time will stand her in good stead, and she’ll almost certainly apply her perseverance and work habits to other interests later on, in their own time.

Some resources that might interest you concerning ‘slow parenting’, early adolescence, and pressures that you might be vulnerable to as a parent of a teenager:

http://lovingearthmama.com/2013/04/17/slow-parenting-eigh-simple-steps-to-help-our-children-be-a-little-calmer/

http://children.webmd.com/tc/growth-and-development-ages-11-to-14-years-overview

http://parents-space.com/parenting/parenting-teens/parents-of-teenagers-feel-pressure-too/