What Truly Forms a Love of Learning

What Shaped Me: Learning, Music, and Parenting Through the Teenage Years

As I walk through the teenage years with my 13-year-old son, I often find my thoughts drifting back to my own childhood. This season invites reflection, both on the past and on myself. Parenting him has revealed my own limitations as a mother, but it has also drawn my attention to the experiences that quietly formed me and continue to shape who I am today.

Perhaps this reflection comes not only because I am a parent, but also because I am a teacher. Day after day, I work with students at different stages of growth, watching how habits are formed, how attention is shaped, and how a child’s relationship with learning slowly takes root. Parenting and teaching have a way of illuminating each other.

One thing I know with certainty is this: I love learning.

In a world saturated with noise and distraction, what genuinely energizes and grounds me is reading books. I love to learn. Even now, at 46, I cannot imagine a life without learning. It is the one place where I feel deeply satisfied, mentally alive, and inwardly nourished. There are many things about myself that I struggle to accept, but this is one thing I truly appreciate. I have an enduring hunger for knowledge and for new insights across so many areas of life.

That realization naturally leads me to wonder where this hunger came from.

When I look back, I believe the answer is music.

From a very young age, I practiced every day, long before I understood words like discipline, formation, or delayed gratification. Day after day, year after year, I wrestled with one piece after another, working to master technique and to cultivate artistry, however imperfect it may have been. Even as a child, my mind was constantly engaged. How can I make this piece sound more beautiful? What did my teacher tell me to do? What technique is missing here? What do I need to practice in order to gain it?

Yes, there were certainly moments when my mind wandered without focus. But the habit of showing up each day, of trying again and again to make something beautiful, quietly challenged my young mind to think, to reflect, and to persevere.

That steady rhythm of questioning shaped me far more than I realized at the time. Music trained my mind to observe closely, think critically, and persevere patiently. It built habits of reflection and problem-solving long before I ever had language for them. Over time, that way of thinking sparked a genuine love for learning. The habit of asking questions, seeking understanding, and refining one’s work spilled beyond the piano and into every area of life.

As a teacher now, I see this same process unfolding in my students. Progress rarely comes from shortcuts or pressure. It comes from daily engagement, thoughtful effort, and learning how to stay with something long enough for understanding to deepen. The goal is never perfection, but formation.

As I parent my son through these formative years, this reflection stays close to my heart, because that is the hunger I want my son to have. Not a hunger driven by achievement or comparison, but a deep desire to learn, to think, to wrestle with questions, and to grow.

It reminds me that formation rarely happens through pressure or perfection. More often, it happens quietly, through daily habits and long obedience in the same direction—through meaningful work, sustained effort, and engagement with something both beautiful and demanding. These are the kinds of experiences that shape not only skills, but the way a child learns to think and relate to the world.

As I am about to make important decisions for my son in this season, I’m learning to focus less on quick fixes and more on what cultivates depth over time. What strengthens attention. What trains perseverance. What nurtures curiosity. Above all, I seek God’s guidance, trusting that He sees the full picture more clearly than I ever could. Because the greatest gift I can offer my son may not be answers or outcomes, but a life formed around a genuine love of learning.

And this is what I want to pass on not only to my son, but to my students as well—not simply skills or results, but a way of learning that values depth, curiosity, and thoughtful persistence.

So I find myself asking: what can we do as parents to cultivate this kind of hunger? Perhaps we don’t need to look very far. Maybe it begins by reflecting on our own lives—not only on our shortcomings, but on the parts of ourselves we are grateful for. What shaped those parts of us? How were they cultivated over time? And what is one small, faithful step we can take today to guide our children in that same direction?

If you’ve been thinking about this too, I’d love for you to share.