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"When I first heard it, I thought it was a recording. I tip-toed into the living room where my 10-year-old was playing a classical song I&amp;#039;d never heard him perform on the piano before. When he was finished, I asked him where he learned it. &amp;quot;I made it up,&amp;quot; he said nonchalantly, as though he had written a new version of &amp;quot;Chopsticks&amp;quot; and not what sounded to my untrained ear like something from &amp;quot;Live from Lincoln Center.&amp;quot; I thought, Who is this child and where did he come from? More importantly: What am I going to do with him? I wasn&amp;#039;t sure if I was supposed to be as amazed as I was. When I took piano lessons as a kid, I quit soon after I&amp;#039;d taught myself Barry Manilow&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Mandy,&amp;quot; so anything my kids play already sounds far better than anything I&amp;#039;ve ever been capable of producing. So, I asked Nicholas to play his new song for his father when he got home. &amp;quot;Did you hear Nick&amp;#039;s song?&amp;quot; my husband stormed into the room with a look on his face of paternal pride and hope for a sizable college scholarship. I replied, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s pretty good, isn&amp;#039;t it?&amp;quot; He grabbed the phone and disappeared.  A few moments later, I heard Nick playing his song over the phone for my father, a talented jazz pianist by hobby who surely knows more than we do about what&amp;#039;s good and what just sounds good on the piano. The next day, he called me. &amp;quot;Did you hear Nick&amp;#039;s song?&amp;quot; he asked in a tone of grandfatherly pride and hope that someone in the family might finally follow in his footsteps when it comes to music. I replied, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s pretty good, isn&amp;#039;t it?&amp;quot; He answered, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s very good.&amp;quot; So, I asked Nick to play it for his piano teacher, a classically trained pianist who certainly knows more than we do about what&amp;#039;s good and what just sounds good on the piano. She, too, was impressed. She helped him write some of the notes down on paper and gave him some pointers on improving the structure of his song. When Nick came home from his piano lesson that day, he practiced for an hour. &amp;quot;Are you going to be one of those mothers who drive your kid all over the country for concerts?&amp;quot; a friend asked me when I told her about my son&amp;#039;s amazing new tune. I thought about it, and then I let out a long sigh of relief. &amp;quot;Nope,&amp;quot; I answered, &amp;quot;because all the kids who&amp;#039;ll end up at Julliard are already playing Carnegie Hall.&amp;quot;  Finally, today&amp;#039;s impossibly high standards for raising children have let me off the hook. I don&amp;#039;t have to gas up my mini-van to go spend hours in concert halls, because the kids who are competing for the title of this year&amp;#039;s piano prodigy have already appeared on Good Morning America. They&amp;#039;ve been playing the piano since they were in diapers, and they started writing concertos back in kindergarten between karate class and spelling bee practice.  I have nothing to worry about, and neither does my son. If he wants to make up songs between his weekly half-hour piano lessons, that&amp;#039;s okay with me. But if he prefers to go outside and kick soccer balls with his brother, that&amp;#039;s fine, too. He can write his own concertos or he can make a fort in the backyard. At last, I know what I&amp;#039;m going to do with him. My kid can just play. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a2197/good-grief-010208/>