If you take the right approach then it’s easy to get kids interested in all kinds of stuff. I was competing in concours one time with a friend, his wife and two kids were helping prep the car. His kids, probably seen him do the car a hundred times, they were just going through the motions.
I took a minute said here look at this, just this one lug nut, just this one tiny little area around the lug nut. See way in there? Kids have great eyes, they see the dirt no problem. So I tell them that’s what we’re doing. The whole car if you stand back and look at it, looks perfect. What we want is to find any tiny speck hiding anywhere on this wheel. Hide and seek!
Now they have a game, and man you never seen kids play so hard! We won, and the areas of the car the kids were responsible for- the wheels- got some of the highest scores.
Kids just naturally want to learn stuff. Carl Sagan had a whole big thing about kids and their zest for learning. How we as adults stamp a lot of it out. Don’t do that! Find some part of it they can relate to, make it interesting, give them something to do, they will be all over it.
Like the violinist in grade school, he said close your eyes and listen. Now I am one violin. And he played one clean note. Now I am two. And he played a chord. Now I am five! And I swear that is what we heard!
Kids like games. Make it interesting. If they aren’t interested, oh well. But I doubt that will happen. If I can get kids interested in cleaning wheel lug nuts you can for sure get them interested in music.
