Hi!

Good article, I am from a family of teachers in many generations so I can kind of relate to this. Not a teacher myself though, but since I run a local Go club, teaching the secrets of an ancient board game to people ranging from little kids to grown adults has opened up a whole new world to me. And indeed I find your example is one of the most efficient ones.

Now if I only could successfully extend that strategy to teaching my own kids it would be great. I never got it from my own parents, they were too busy with their own things and even my father who was a teacher, didn't find time to show interest in my progress, while being literally the best teacher to his own students. (Their words.)

We have a saying in Finland, "Suutarin lapsilla ei ole kenkiä" which translates to "shoemakers kids have no shoes". That kind of applies.

My elder son Leo practices karate, and while I personally try to be interested, I've noticed that although he really does like karate (not counting actually going there), he is hesitant to show me anything he's learned, which is a bit troublesome for me.

Both my sons were eager to learn Go, the boardgame I play, but as years have passed, they've grown to even dislike it. The younger one, Miro has even replaced his preference to Chess, just to yank my strings a bit I'm sure of it.

So while I truly think this is the way to do it, for my own kids I must have messed it up somehow. :)