Quand un enfant veut arrêter les cours de musique, un sport ou une autre activité en cours d'engagement, les parents regrettent-ils de l'avoir forcé à finir — ou de l'avoir laissé abandonner ?
Si vous agissez
Faire tenir l'engagement à l'enfant
21%
Si vous n’agissez pas
Laisser l'enfant abandonner quand il veut arrêter
48%
Pourcentage de personnes qui regrettent ensuite chaque choix. Les barres et le registre complet s’affichent ci-dessous.
Famille
Dernière révision 2026-05-04
Qualité des preuves 3.63/5
Score d’évaluation en huit dimensions selon la
grille de qualité
. Chaque dimension notée de 1 à 5.
D1 Vérification des sources
3/5
D2 Autorité et indépendance des sources
4/5
D3 Précision du taux de regret
2/5
D4 Comparabilité des sources
2/5
D5 Motif de Gilovich
5/5
D6 Qualité de la prose
4/5
D7 Complétude des réserves
4/5
D8 Qualité de l’échantillon
5/5
Moyenne3.63/5
Données de substitution — aucune enquête directe sur les regrets n'existe pour cette décision. Les taux sont dérivés des scores de satisfaction et des obstacles d'accès plutôt que de questions portant directement sur les regrets. Voir les mises en garde ci-dessous.
Regret d'action
Faire tenir l'engagement à l'enfant
21%
~21% des anciens jeunes athlètes ont rapporté avoir été poussés à jouer alors qu'ils ne le voulaient pas (proxy de continuation forcée)
Anciens jeunes athlètes de 10-17 ans, représentatifs des États-Unis au niveau national
rétrospective, enquête octobre-décembre 2025
Regret d'inaction
Laisser l'enfant abandonner quand il veut arrêter
48%
48% des adultes ayant abandonné le piano enfants le regrettent (proxy de regret musical)
Adultes américains ayant joué du piano et ayant ensuite arrêté, sous-ensemble d'échantillon représentatif au niveau national
transversale, enquêtes juin-juillet 2022
% regrettent ce choix
Faire tenir l'engagement à l'enfantLaisser l'enfant abandonner quand il veut arrêter
21%48%
inaction dominates — L'inaction domine — la plupart regrettent de ne pas avoir agi.
Décisions associées
Décisions sémantiquement similaires — même terrain, compromis différents.
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.
Sources : action
Registre des sources
Chaque chiffre ci-dessous correspond à ce que la source a rapporté, avec la citation textuelle sur laquelle nous nous sommes appuyés et la méthode de calcul. Cliquez sur un lien pour vérifier directement.
[1]Aspen Institute Project Play — Aspen Institute National Survey of Youth and Sports: 15 Key Findings
Étude primaire
21% of former players reported being pressured to play when they didn't want to, versus 9% of current players
Extrait
“"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)."
”
Données source de
2025-12-01
Consulté le
2026-05-04
Calcul
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
Revue par les pairs
Grit — perseverance and passion for long-term goals — predicted educational attainment and performance outcomes above and beyond IQ and conscientiousness across multiple populations
Extrait
“"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."
”
Données source de
2007-06-01
Consulté le
2026-05-04
Calcul
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.
Sources : inaction
Registre des sources
Chaque chiffre ci-dessous correspond à ce que la source a rapporté, avec la citation textuelle sur laquelle nous nous sommes appuyés et la méthode de calcul. Cliquez sur un lien pour vérifier directement.
2/3 sources vérifiées de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée
[1]YouGov — Younger Americans are increasingly exposed to playing music and a wider range of instruments
Vérifié
Source de référence
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
Extrait
“"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."
”
Données source de
2022-08-23
Consulté le
2026-05-04
Vérification
Extrait récupéré et confirmé de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée lors de notre audit de vérification.
Calcul
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?
Vérifié
Revue par les pairs
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'
Extrait
“"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."
”
Données source de
2021-11-25
Consulté le
2026-05-04
Vérification
Extrait récupéré et confirmé de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée lors de notre audit de vérification.
Calcul
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
Revue par les pairs
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
Extrait
“"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."
”
Données source de
2023-06-01
Consulté le
2026-07-03
Calcul
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.
Réserves
Aucun chiffre n'est une mesure directe du regret concernant la décision d'arrêter vs terminer. Les 21% côté action sont un taux de pression rapporté parmi les jeunes athlètes actuels — des enfants qui ont dit que leurs parents les ont poussés à jouer alors qu'ils ne le voulaient pas — pas un taux de regret rétrospectif adulte d'avoir été obligé de terminer. Les 48% côté inaction mesurent les adultes qui regrettent rétrospectivement d'avoir abandonné un instrument spécifique (piano), mais l'enquête ne distingue pas entre arrêter parce qu'un parent l'a permis versus arrêter parce que l'enfant a grandi ou que la famille a déménagé. Les deux ensembles de données proviennent de domaines différents (musique vs sport), d'âges de répondants différents (jeunes de 10-17 ans vs adultes d'âges non spécifiés) et de constructions différentes (pression vécue vs regret rétrospectif). Cette comparaison inter-domaines introduit une hétérogénéité de mesure substantielle ; le delta de -0,27 doit être lu comme une direction indicative, pas une estimation précise. Aucune enquête à grande échelle n'a directement demandé aux parents « regrettez-vous d'avoir laissé votre enfant abandonner une activité ? » ou demandé aux adultes « regrettez-vous que vos parents vous aient fait terminer une activité contre votre volonté ? » Des recherches approfondies confirment cette lacune dans la littérature. Le chiffre de 21% de l'Aspen Institute surestime probablement le ressentiment durable parmi les enfants qui ont été obligés de terminer, puisque Duckworth et al. (2007) et les travaux de réplication ultérieurs montrent que terminer des engagements structurés prédit des résultats positifs à long terme. Le chiffre YouGov de 48% pour le piano est le taux de regret par instrument le plus conservateur disponible ; les chiffres pour la guitare montent à 51-55%, ce qui élargirait davantage le delta. La direction inaction-domine est cohérente avec le cadre d'asymétrie temporelle de Gilovich et Medvec (1994) — les regrets d'inaction (chemins non empruntés) tendent à croître avec le temps tandis que les regrets d'action s'estompent — et est répliquée dans Richardson et Gilovich (2023, Royal Society Open Science, n=2 600). Les données d'enquête proviennent d'échantillons américains ; les normes culturelles autour de la finition des engagements, de l'autorité parentale et de l'instruction musicale varient substantiellement entre les pays.
