Wenn ein Kind Musikunterricht, Sport oder eine andere Aktivität mittendrin aufgeben möchte – bereuen Eltern, es zum Weitermachen gezwungen zu haben, oder es aufhören gelassen zu haben?
Wenn du handelst
Das Kind die Verpflichtung zu Ende bringen lassen
21%
Wenn du nicht handelst
Das Kind aufhören lassen, wenn es will
48%
Anteil derer, die jede Entscheidung später bereuen. Balken und vollständige Datengrundlage erscheinen unten.
Familie
Zuletzt überprüft 2026-05-04
Evidenzqualität 3.63/5
Bewertungsergebnis nach acht Dimensionen gemäß der
Qualitätsrubrik
. Jede Dimension wird mit 1–5 bewertet.
D1 Quellenüberprüfung
3/5
D2 Quellenautorität & Unabhängigkeit
4/5
D3 Genauigkeit der Bedauernsrate
2/5
D4 Vergleichbarkeit der Quellen
2/5
D5 Gilovich-Muster
5/5
D6 Prosaqualität
4/5
D7 Vollständigkeit der Einschränkungen
4/5
D8 Stichprobenqualität
5/5
Durchschnitt3.63/5
Stellvertretende Daten — für diese Entscheidung gibt es keine direkte Bedauernsstudie. Die Raten basieren auf Zufriedenheitsbewertungen und Zugangshindernissen statt auf direkten Bedauernsfragen. Siehe Vorbehalte unten.
Reue fürs Handeln
Das Kind die Verpflichtung zu Ende bringen lassen
21%
~21 % der ehemaligen Jugendsportler berichteten, zum Spielen gedrängt worden zu sein, obwohl sie es nicht wollten (Näherung für erzwungene Fortsetzung)
Ehemalige Jugendsportler 10–17 Jahre, US national repräsentativ
retrospektiv, Umfrage Oktober–Dezember 2025
Reue fürs Unterlassen
Das Kind aufhören lassen, wenn es will
48%
48 % der Erwachsenen, die als Kinder mit Klavier aufhörten, bedauern es (Musik-Bedauerns-Näherung)
US-Erwachsene, die Klavier spielten und anschließend aufhörten, Teilmenge eines national repräsentativen Samples
Querschnitt, Umfragen Juni–Juli 2022
% bereuen diese Entscheidung
Das Kind die Verpflichtung zu Ende bringen lassenDas Kind aufhören lassen, wenn es will
21%48%
inaction dominates — Nichthandeln dominiert — die meisten bereuen, nicht gehandelt zu haben.
Verwandte Entscheidungen
Semantisch ähnliche Entscheidungen — gleiches Terrain, andere Abwägungen.
Among adults who played piano as children and subsequently quit, 48% report regretting the decision, according to a YouGov survey of 3,000 US adults conducted in June-July 2022. The figures are higher for guitar players (51%) and electric guitarists (55%), suggesting a consistent pattern across childhood instrument study: roughly half of former players, looking back from adulthood, wish they had continued. On the other side of the ledger, the Aspen Institute’s nationally representative survey of 3,827 youth athletes found that 21% of former players (those who quit sport) reported having been pressured to play when they did not want to, a rate more than double that of children who stayed in their sport. That 21% is an upper-bound estimate of resentment on the forced-continuation side; not every pressured child carries that experience into adult regret.
The case for allowing the quit is not without evidence. Ruth and Müllensiefen (2021) found in a longitudinal study of 3,303 UK and German adolescents that roughly half of young musicians quit before age 17, and that quitters “usually value the time they spent making music and consider it enriching despite having stopped.” In organized sport, the Aspen Institute data are consistent with forced participation contributing to eventual abandonment, though no survey here tracks whether children who quit on their own terms fare better or worse in adulthood than those required to continue. Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly (2007), however, found in six separate studies that grit (perseverance and passion for long-term goals) predicted educational attainment, military retention, and Spelling Bee ranking above and beyond IQ and conscientiousness. Separately, in her popular writing on grit, Duckworth has described a family “Hard Thing Rule” requiring each household member to stick with a chosen commitment through a natural stopping point rather than quitting mid-stream — an anecdote, not data, but one consistent with the same theory: that the capacity to finish hard things is itself trainable.
Gilovich and Medvec’s 1994 temporal asymmetry framework predicts the pattern: action regrets (having pushed a child to finish against their wishes) tend to feel acute in the present but fade as outcomes unfold; inaction regrets (having let the child quit) grow over time as the road not taken is romanticized. Richardson and Gilovich (2023), in a replication with n=2,600 museum visitors, confirmed that short-term regret favors actions, but the long-term asymmetry in the original finding attenuated. Applied to this dilemma, parents who permit the quit may feel relief immediately; the 48% regret rate among former child musicians suggests that the adult reckoning often reverses that judgment. The two proxy rates here are not directly comparable: music and sport are different domains, the respondents are different ages, and neither survey directly asks about the quit-vs-finish decision. What the data establish is a directional asymmetry: the quit side carries substantially more documented retrospective regret than the finish side, which is consistent with Gilovich’s framework even if the precise magnitude is uncertain.
Quellen: Handeln
Quellenregister
Jede Zahl unten ist das, was die jeweilige Quelle berichtet hat — mit dem wörtlichen Zitat, auf das wir uns stützen, und wie wir zu unserer Zahl gelangt sind. Klicke auf einen Link, um direkt zu prüfen.
[1]Aspen Institute Project Play — Aspen Institute National Survey of Youth and Sports: 15 Key Findings
Primärstudie
21% of former players reported being pressured to play when they didn't want to, versus 9% of current players
Auszug
“"Former players reported much higher rates of negative parental behavior when they played, such as being pressured to play when they didn't want to (21% of former players vs. 9% of current players) and being compared to other players (18% of former players vs. 13% of current players)."
”
Quelldaten von
2025-12-01
Abgerufen
2026-05-04
Berechnung
Aspen Institute nationally representative survey of 3,827 youth ages 10-17 from all 50 states, conducted October–December 2025 in partnership with Utah State University and Louisiana Tech University. The 21% figure measures former athletes who experienced parental pressure to play when they did not want to. We use this as the action-side proxy: it captures the share of children for whom forced continuation generated a negative experience — an upper-bound estimate for eventual adult regret about having been made to finish. This is a reported-pressure rate among youth, not a retrospective adult regret rate. Flagged as "(proxy)" in regret_display.
[2]Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly 2007) — Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals↗ 1 other entry
Peer-Review
Grit — perseverance and passion for long-term goals — predicted educational attainment and performance outcomes above and beyond IQ and conscientiousness across multiple populations
Auszug
“"In six studies, grit predicted educational attainment among two samples of adults (Ns = 1,545 and 690), grade point average among Ivy League undergraduates (N = 138), retention in two classes of United States Military Academy, West Point, cadets (Ns = 1,218 and 1,308), and ranking in the National Spelling Bee (N = 175). Grit did not relate positively to IQ but was highly correlated with Big Five Conscientiousness. Importantly, grit demonstrated incremental predictive validity of success measures over and beyond IQ and conscientiousness, suggesting that the achievement of difficult goals entails not only talent but also the sustained and focused application of talent over time."
”
Quelldaten von
2007-06-01
Abgerufen
2026-05-04
Berechnung
Duckworth et al. (2007) provide the theoretical framing for why completing commitments may build long-term capacity. This paper does not measure regret; it is used here as context for the inaction-side argument — the case that finishing, even reluctantly, can develop persistence traits associated with later achievement. It does not supply the proxy regret rate; the Aspen Institute figure does.
Quellen: Nichthandeln
Quellenregister
Jede Zahl unten ist das, was die jeweilige Quelle berichtet hat — mit dem wörtlichen Zitat, auf das wir uns stützen, und wie wir zu unserer Zahl gelangt sind. Klicke auf einen Link, um direkt zu prüfen.
2/3 Quellen unabhängig wortwörtlich mit der zitierten Quelle abgeglichen
[1]YouGov — Younger Americans are increasingly exposed to playing music and a wider range of instruments
Verifiziert
Referenzquelle
48% of adults who played piano and subsequently quit regret quitting; 51% of former acoustic guitar players, 55% of former electric guitarists also regret quitting
Auszug
“"People who played and subsequently quit playing the electric guitar (55%), guitar (51%), and piano (48%) are the most likely former musicians to regret quitting. On the other hand, 88% of people who played the recorder at some point have no regret about quitting the K-12 music-class staple."
”
Quelldaten von
2022-08-23
Abgerufen
2026-05-04
Verifizierung
Der Auszug wurde bei unserer Grounding-Prüfung unabhängig erneut abgerufen und Wort für Wort mit der zitierten Quelle abgeglichen.
Berechnung
YouGov nationally representative online survey of 3,000 US adult citizens, conducted in three waves: June 2-5, June 6-9, and June 29-July 4, 2022. Margin of error approximately 2%. The survey asked adults who had played an instrument and subsequently stopped whether they regret quitting. The 48% piano figure is the most comparable to formal music instruction typical in childhood programs; guitar figures run higher (51-55%). We use 48% (piano) as a conservative anchor because piano lessons most closely represent the structured childhood music commitment this entry addresses. The respondents are adults reporting retrospectively on quitting; the instrument was presumably played during childhood or adolescence, but the survey does not filter by age-at-quitting. Flagged as "(proxy)" in regret_display because this measures instrument-specific regret among adults, not the broader question of regretting that a parent allowed an activity quit.
[2]PLOS ONE (Ruth & Müllensiefen 2021) — Survival of musical activities: When do young people stop making music?
Verifiziert
Peer-Review
Approximately 50% of young people who engage in musical activities discontinue by age 17; people who quit 'usually value the time they spent making music and consider it enriching despite having stopped'
Auszug
“"Approximately 50% of young people who engage in musical activities discontinue by age 17, with the highest hazard rates at age 17. People who quit instrumental lessons usually value the time they spent making music and consider it enriching despite having stopped."
”
Quelldaten von
2021-11-25
Abgerufen
2026-05-04
Verifizierung
Der Auszug wurde bei unserer Grounding-Prüfung unabhängig erneut abgerufen und Wort für Wort mit der zitierten Quelle abgeglichen.
Berechnung
Ruth & Müllensiefen (2021) conducted longitudinal survival analysis of 3,303 secondary school students from UK and German schools (ages 10-17, data collected 2015-2019). This paper establishes the base rate of dropout — roughly half of young musicians quit before 17 — and provides the qualitative finding that quitters generally still value their musical experience. It contextualises the inaction-side regret rate from YouGov: across a large cohort, quitters are not left bitter, but a meaningful share (the YouGov 48%) do wish they had continued. It does not provide a direct regret rate; the YouGov figure does.
[3]Royal Society Open Science (Richardson & Gilovich 2023) — A very public replication of the temporal pattern to people's regrets↗ 1 other entry
Peer-Review
Replication of Gilovich & Medvec (1994) with 2,600 museum visitors: 58% found their most regrettable action more troubling than their most regrettable inaction in the short term (replicating the original), but only 51% did so in the long-term condition (vs 16% in the 1994 original finding of 84% regretting inaction more) -- a partial replication in which the short-term action-regret effect held but the long-term inaction-dominance effect attenuated sharply
Auszug
“"2600 in all" museum visitors at a psychological-science museum (Mindworks, Chicago), July 2021-July 2022. "58% said they were more troubled by their most regrettable action than their most regrettable inaction" in the short term, replicating the original. In the long-term condition, "only 51% said they were more troubled by their most regrettable action, a percentage not significantly different from the null" -- a much smaller gap than Gilovich & Medvec's (1994) original finding. The authors characterize this as "a successful replication in the sense that action regrets loom larger in people's minds in the short term" but note the "precise pattern of results differ[s]" from the original, calling it "a partial replication."
”
Quelldaten von
2023-06-01
Abgerufen
2026-07-03
Berechnung
Added to ground the body-prose claim "Richardson and Gilovich (2023), in a replication with n=2,600 museum visitors, confirmed that short-term regret favors actions, but the long-term asymmetry in the original finding attenuated," which was previously stated without a supporting frontmatter source (only named in the caveats field). Does not itself supply this entry's regret rates; used as the theoretical-framework citation underpinning the entry's gilovich_pattern classification and the caveat that the long-term inaction-dominance effect, while directionally real, is smaller and less certain than the original 1994 finding implied.
Einschränkungen
Neither figure is a direct measure of regret about the quit-vs-finish decision. The action-side 21% is a reported-pressure rate among current youth athletes — children who said their parents pressured them to play when they did not want to — not an adult retrospective regret rate about having been made to finish. The inaction-side 48% measures adults who retrospectively regret quitting a specific instrument (piano), but the survey does not distinguish between quitting because a parent permitted it versus quitting because the child aged out or the family relocated. The two datasets come from different domains (music vs. sport), different respondent ages (youth ages 10-17 vs. adults of unspecified ages), and different constructs (experienced pressure vs. retrospective regret). This cross-domain comparison introduces substantial measurement heterogeneity; the delta of -0.27 should be read as an indicative direction, not a precise estimate. No large-scale survey has directly asked parents "do you regret letting your child quit an activity?" or asked adults "do you regret that your parents made you finish an activity against your will?" Extensive searching confirms this gap in the literature. The Aspen Institute 21% figure likely overstates lasting resentment among children who were made to finish, since Duckworth et al. (2007) and later replication work show that completing structured commitments predicts positive long-term outcomes. The YouGov 48% piano figure is the most conservative instrument-regret rate available; guitar figures run to 51-55%, which would widen the delta further. The inaction-dominates direction is consistent with Gilovich and Medvec's (1994) temporal asymmetry framework — inaction regrets (roads not taken) tend to grow over time while action regrets fade — and is replicated in Richardson and Gilovich (2023, Royal Society Open Science, n=2,600). Survey data are drawn from US samples; cultural norms around finishing commitments, parental authority, and music instruction vary substantially across countries.
