Many years ago, my son was invited to a regional math competition. I thought that it is like a typical field trip to another school. Not knowing that it was a MATHCOUNTS (only realized it years later). At the end, there was an award ceremony by grade and by school size etc. I was not surprised that he didn't get any award, though I silently hoped that he would get an honorable mention etc. No, he didn't get any mention. We weren't disappointed, because he never did practice for it.
The idea of pushing him to study math went out of window before it was even brought up. It was a good thing that he didn't win any award on that day. A good day.
