Click here to read Tips For Parents, Part 1, and other articles just for parents!
1. Help with Practice! If your child still needs you to remind, supervise, or facilitate homework, chores, etc, then they still need your help to make sure practicing is done. Very few children under age 8-10 are mature enough to schedule their own lives, putting duties, even fun ones, before play, and keeping an organized practice routine without parental help. Your child may love piano, but may not have the developmental ability to put practice over playing with friends or doing their favorite leisure activities. This is normal, ok, and doesn't make your child a bad piano student! They just need a bit of guidance from you. The amount of involvement your child will need from you is specific to your child, but in general:
2. Encourage your child. Focus on praising their effort, their character, their accomplishments, and tell them how it makes you feel when you hear them play. Let them know that you love it when they make music, and that you support them and are behind them all the way. Make a big deal out of awards and honors they receive, (in my studio these are not given lightly!) and come to their recitals. Tell them you are proud of them when they do really well or work really hard or persevere when things are difficult. Becoming a competent musician is not easy- celebrate the milestones along the way! Let them play for you often at home, and ask them what they love about their music. Tell them your favorites, and make music as much of a "together" activity as you can.
3. Bring them to lessons! I know this sounds rather obvious, but regular attendance is a MUST for consistent progress! If your student doesn't drive themselves to lessons in their own car, they are probably dependent on you to get them here. Please bring them, and make their music a priority. Try to schedule times out of town during breaks as much as possible, let me know as far in advance as you can when you must be absent, and consider taking advantage of Skype lessons or practice sessions so that the continuity of study continues, particularly if your child needs to be away for more than one lesson at a time. There are only 16-18 weeks of lessons per semester, and if you miss 3 or 4 you may well be missing a month of potential progress as well.
4. If your child is young, attend all lessons. If your child is older or more independent, attend some lessons. There is so substitute for sitting through a lesson when it comes to knowing what your child should be doing at home, knowing how I am directing them, getting to know me, and having the opportunity to ask me questions or make comments in person.
5. Make sure your child gets plenty of rest and good nutrition. As a fellow parent I can say that nobody's perfect here, me included, but please keep in mind that there is a huge difference in the way your child performs and plays and learns, and where their threshold of frustration is, between the student well-rested and the student sleep-deprived, particularly in very young children. If your child is so sleepy that nothing makes sense and everything is the Most Frustrating Thing Ever, I may send them home early for a good nap, rather than wading through the tears! I want my students to love piano and to enjoy our time together, and to that end I won't continue a lesson if the child is ill, emotionally distraught, or so tired we can't really do anything.
6. Please teach your child to be courteous and respectful. It's totally ok to be upset, or to request that I do something differently, to make a suggestion about a piece, or to ask for an alternate activity, but throwing tantrums or violence against myself or my piano will end the lesson, right then. :-) If there are regular behavior problems during lessons, I may ask you to stay, so that I can enlist your help in dealing with them in the way your family finds appropriate. We want to have fun learning how to play beautiful piano music, and behavior issues can be a big distraction if not dealt with promptly.
1. Help with Practice! If your child still needs you to remind, supervise, or facilitate homework, chores, etc, then they still need your help to make sure practicing is done. Very few children under age 8-10 are mature enough to schedule their own lives, putting duties, even fun ones, before play, and keeping an organized practice routine without parental help. Your child may love piano, but may not have the developmental ability to put practice over playing with friends or doing their favorite leisure activities. This is normal, ok, and doesn't make your child a bad piano student! They just need a bit of guidance from you. The amount of involvement your child will need from you is specific to your child, but in general:
- With a very young child or a child who is just beginning lessons, you will need to be seated near them for the duration of practice. You don't need to be the teacher, but make sure they have read, and appear to understand, the assignment notes I have given. Ask them what they will begin with, and what their goals are for that piece or exercise. You may need to prompt periodically to make sure they are thinking about what was good about they just did and what they feel could be better. Ask questions, but don't feed them answers. Resist the urge to point out what they are doing wrong, unless they specifically ask for your advice. They don't have to be perfect- the point is to teach them the process of practicing so that this time of maximum parental involvement in practice doesn't last forever. :-)
- With an older or more experienced child, you don't need to be in the room, but please do require that they practice daily, make it a natural part of their routine at home, and before they leave the practice session, ask them if they have read their assignment notes, looked at theory assignments and worked on them, and if they feel their goals for this session have been met. If they give you a blank look at the mention of goals, you may need to prompt- what was your assignment? What part of that did you do today? What were you happy with, and was there anything with which you were frustrated? Their answers matter less than their engagement in proper practice procedure.
- Don't hesitate to let them contact me with questions! Either you or they are always welcome to call, text or email if something isn't going quite right.
- No matter how old or what a wonderful pianist your student is, there will be times that they would rather not be practicing. This is normal, but it is up to you, the parent, to make sure practice still happens. I will do my best to motivate and inspire, but the final responsibility rests with you to make sure your child practices, and thereby gets the most out of their lessons. True story: I have never heard anyone, ever, going on about how grateful they are that their parents never made them practice their instrument as a child! I myself would not be a musician if not for my mom's practicing with me when I was young, and I have always adored music and the piano.
2. Encourage your child. Focus on praising their effort, their character, their accomplishments, and tell them how it makes you feel when you hear them play. Let them know that you love it when they make music, and that you support them and are behind them all the way. Make a big deal out of awards and honors they receive, (in my studio these are not given lightly!) and come to their recitals. Tell them you are proud of them when they do really well or work really hard or persevere when things are difficult. Becoming a competent musician is not easy- celebrate the milestones along the way! Let them play for you often at home, and ask them what they love about their music. Tell them your favorites, and make music as much of a "together" activity as you can.
3. Bring them to lessons! I know this sounds rather obvious, but regular attendance is a MUST for consistent progress! If your student doesn't drive themselves to lessons in their own car, they are probably dependent on you to get them here. Please bring them, and make their music a priority. Try to schedule times out of town during breaks as much as possible, let me know as far in advance as you can when you must be absent, and consider taking advantage of Skype lessons or practice sessions so that the continuity of study continues, particularly if your child needs to be away for more than one lesson at a time. There are only 16-18 weeks of lessons per semester, and if you miss 3 or 4 you may well be missing a month of potential progress as well.
4. If your child is young, attend all lessons. If your child is older or more independent, attend some lessons. There is so substitute for sitting through a lesson when it comes to knowing what your child should be doing at home, knowing how I am directing them, getting to know me, and having the opportunity to ask me questions or make comments in person.
5. Make sure your child gets plenty of rest and good nutrition. As a fellow parent I can say that nobody's perfect here, me included, but please keep in mind that there is a huge difference in the way your child performs and plays and learns, and where their threshold of frustration is, between the student well-rested and the student sleep-deprived, particularly in very young children. If your child is so sleepy that nothing makes sense and everything is the Most Frustrating Thing Ever, I may send them home early for a good nap, rather than wading through the tears! I want my students to love piano and to enjoy our time together, and to that end I won't continue a lesson if the child is ill, emotionally distraught, or so tired we can't really do anything.
6. Please teach your child to be courteous and respectful. It's totally ok to be upset, or to request that I do something differently, to make a suggestion about a piece, or to ask for an alternate activity, but throwing tantrums or violence against myself or my piano will end the lesson, right then. :-) If there are regular behavior problems during lessons, I may ask you to stay, so that I can enlist your help in dealing with them in the way your family finds appropriate. We want to have fun learning how to play beautiful piano music, and behavior issues can be a big distraction if not dealt with promptly.