I have three daughters, currently 9, 13 and 17, and I pushed all three to music.

Sara is 17 and learned piano from 6 to 12, then she discovered her passion for flute, so she reduced her piano effort, moving to the flute, where now she's pretty good. But, apart from the instrument, I am very satisfied about her knowledge of music, her ability to read music and play with apparently no effort.

This same situation applies to Marta, the 13 one, which started harp when she was 7. With highs and lows she's still learning with very good results: she won a couple of contests and she's very "musical" if you know what I mean. Now she started to discover classic guitar, but harp is still her main instrument.

Finally, the little one, Camilla, who started violin 2 years ago and alredy reads music as I read messages in this forum.

Why have I told you all this? Because there is a big, extremely big effort on parents side. I stressed them for years about how good is music and how good is knowing it and how good is achieving the ability of playing an instruments. There has been highs and lows, and they have been about to dismiss a couple of time, but we all have supported each other and still they are.

So, todays generation suffers from that "everything and now" instant gratification, but we (parents, I mean) have to play our parts.