(Note: You can expect to spend $30,000 to $100,000 annually to fuel your kid's dream of tennis stardom, according to Tim Donovan, founder of Donovan Tennis Strategies, a college recruiting consulting group.)
On the other hand, there are the stage parents who are relentless in driving their kids.Ī prime example, says Winner: Tennis great Andre Agassi, who bemoaned his miserable childhood in his autobiography "Open". "One little kid I worked with was downloading lectures from MIT, all on their own," Ruthsatz says. She is releasing a book next year entitled "The Prodigy's Cousin." Ruthsatz has been collecting DNA from child prodigies around the country, in the hope of identifying a "prodigy gene" - one that is shared with autistic savants, she suspects.
"With true prodigies, it is usually the child leading the parent," says Joanne Ruthsatz, a professor at Ohio State University. You can usually tell the answer by who is doing the pushing. "It puts a huge strain on the families, and it's very stressful," says Ellen Winner, a psychology professor at Boston College who wrote the book "Gifted Children: Myths and Realities." "Having a child prodigy is not necessarily a good thing."īefore dig deep into your pocket, you need to ask yourself: Is your child just very talented at a particular skill, whether it is chess, violin or figure skating? Or are they truly a one-in-a-milion specimen? Between the ages of 6 and 10, she estimates that she spent a half million dollars on lessons, travel and other services to develop Marc's piano talents. Department of Agriculture.įor Hui, that's chump change. Rearing a so-called average child born in 2013 through the age of 18 is estimated to cost $245,000, according to the U.S. Eventually they moved to San Francisco, just to be near a school that could accommodate his elite talent. There was no way Hui could work, as she managed her son's budding career and homeschooled him.
Virtually all the family's money went to lessons with elite teachers, which cost $150-$250 an hour, multiple times per week. garage for four years, a living arrangement that was subsequently upgraded to a "shack," she says. "I didn't know what was ahead of me," she admits. He has since played venues like London's Royal Albert Hall, Beijing's Central Conservatory and New York City's Carnegie Hall in a duet with superstar Lang Lang.Īlong the way, Hui discovered that being the parent of a gifted child is not easy - nor cheap. Her son, pianist Marc Yu, now 16, gave his first orchestral concert at 6 years old. For parents who dream their child will become a prodigy and stun the world with their brilliance, Chloe Hui has a message for you: Be careful what you wish for.
0 kommentar(er)
