Why Do We Stop Loving the Struggle?

When I was young, I hated it when teachers gave me the answer. If they did, my thought process was:

You just ruined a perfectly good problem for me!

The joy was in figuring things out. The moment of struggle, the spark of insight—that’s what made learning exciting.

When my son was little, I saw the same instinct in him. If I so much as hinted at the way to solve something, he’d cover his ears and run out of the room. He wanted to wrestle with the problem on his own terms. One time, he sat quietly in the back of the car for two hours, deep in thought. When we finally reached our destination, he turned to me and gave me the answer to a Math Olympiad problem I had given him earlier that day!

What would have happened if I had known he was working on it? I probably would have interrupted his process, trying to "help."

But somewhere along the way, we stop loving the mental struggle. As we grow up, we become impatient with uncertainty. We want fast answers. Quick solutions.

But real learning lives in that struggle. That’s why, in my classes, I don’t hand out answers—I ask the right questions. I guide my students just enough, so they find their own way. Because when they do, they don’t just memorize—they understand.

Did you ever feel like this as a kid? What happens to us as we get older?