“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”

If you’ve had any experience coaching, or if you’ve had kids involved in some sort of competitive activity, you’ve probably heard this one a thousand times.

Over the course of my coaching career, I’ve even committed it to the back of a T-shirt on more than one occasion.

These last few weeks have been jam-packed with concerts, dance recitals, and other performances. All three of the kids have been beyond busy with rehearsals.

I have to say, I have been tremendously proud of their final products. A had one of his most amazing theatrical performances to date. E had her plate full with ballet, baton, tap, jazz, and a group number. And, G, even though he was in the background, did his part very well, too.

All along the way, I’ve heard pretty much the same thing: “Your children are so talented.” That is gratifying to hear, and it is nice to recognize, but every time I hear it, the little voice in my head says to myself, “no, they work hard.”

In this house, someone is almost always singing, running lines, using the tile floor to perfect their tapping skills, or playing some sort of instrument. The dogs just love it when more than one of those things is going on at the same time. There were weeks this year where E was at the dance studio as many as eight hours, which is a lot for a 12-year-old. Granted, some of those hours were student teaching, and some of them were breaks in between her lessons, but she was still in the dancing frame of mind.

One of my favorite examples of their past dogged determination is the day that G brought home his first saxophone. He was signed up for school lessons, but his instrument delivery came about two weeks before lessons started. He wasn’t content to wait that long, though, and within two days, using YouTube videos, he had taught himself a few notes.

A few years later, he graduated from the alto to the tenor, and listening to the mellower and much less squeaky instrument, made for a lovely evening of sitting on the porch. Yesterday, he lugged home his final saxophone adventure, and we were treated to the even mellower tones of the baritone sax. This one hardly bothers the dogs at all.

By no means are they prodigies in any of their chosen activities, but through hard work, they’ve managed to become what I would say is better than average at the activities that mean the most to them. This has been a difficult task for me to manage, and sometimes to swallow.

It can be frustrating, as a parent, to see your kids’ talents lie in one direction, while they chose to go in another direction. Steve and I always tried to encourage any interest the kids showed in any activity, hoping that by allowing them to try everything, they would better be able to narrow down the activities they really liked or really excelled at. Spoiler alert: We didn’t always agree with their choices.

Since Steve has been gone, I’ve found myself second guessing their decisions, and my own, much more frequently. I’ve also become much more wary of how much emphasis we placed on “work” in the past. I think Steve and I set good examples for our kids about hard work being critical for success, but I wonder if we didn’t place too much emphasis on it. Since I was 15, I have never had just one single job. I’ve always had two, sometimes three, gigs going at once. Even when I was working full time, I usually picked up writing assignments or coaching jobs on the side. Swim instructors and lifeguards are always in demand. In addition to his career, Steve also had some other activities going on, whether it was property management, writing, or his own game call business.

Our plan had been something along the lines of “work hard, play hard.” We had planned to work our tails off and focus on supporting the kids until we were 55, when we hoped that the hard work would pay off and we could retire early, which would also coincide with our last kid graduating from high school. Ideally, then, we would have prepared to reap the benefits of our hard work and enjoy life. Obviously, that didn’t work out so well.

I worry about the example we have set for our kids, as I see A forgo a night out with his friends in order to stay home and work on an audition piece or study for a final. I worry about how indoctrinated they’ve become about how hard work equals success as I see the light in G’s bedroom on until the wee small hours of the morning, because he’s still doing homework, after an evening of double practices.

I know each of them needs to find their own balance and way forward, and I have to do my best to support them. I expressed my concern about the rigors of his schedule to A, and he informed me that he doesn’t see this as work, because he loves doing it, and the things he doesn’t love so much, he knows they are necessary to support the rest of his true passions. Maybe he’s got things more figured out than I do.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing columnist who appears weekly in the Times News.