Here at Artpeggios, we hear many versions of this question. In this article, I’m going to focus on younger children (under 10y) and mostly I’m going to talk about piano, but the same advice applies to all instruments.
As parents, we feel that, in music lessons, we are able to give a fantastic gift to our children: a way for them to express their creativity, to improve cognitive skills, to learn discipline and even to participate in Western cultural heritage. Okay - that sounds a bit grand, but who doesn’t melt at the idea of their little darling playing Mozart? But the reality can often be a bored, exhausted child who dreads lessons and just wants to give up and go back to their iPad.
There are several reasons for this.
First of all most children in our society are over-stimulated - internet, social media, TV, movies, smart phones, games, tablets - and in addition, many are so overbooked with after school activities that they don’t have down time where they are able to process their day. They don’t have time to get bored. And boredom is important because it is (along with necessity) one of the drivers for creativity.
Secondly, many children feel tremendous pressure to be perfect. Maybe they have advanced older siblings. Maybe the pressure comes from their peers or their school. But perfection in music is not attainable for years - if ever. Having unreasonable expectations can be very demoralising. Learning to play an instrument requires time, patience, persistence and the ability to work through your frustration - but the good news is that music practice can teach these things.
So how do I stop my child from becoming demotivated ?
Children are motivated by progress. But progress is only achieved by practice. No child is going to learn an instrument from an hour’s lesson once a week. It is the practice in between which teaches them. Think of the lesson as an agenda, and the practice part as the learning. They learn by engaging with their instrument between lessons, working their way through a piece, difficulty by difficulty, practising whatever the teacher has set, with patience and diligence and getting used to listening to themselves play without judgement.
The without judgement part is important. As parents, you can help by not commenting on a ‘wrong’ note, their skill, or their rate of progress. In theory, there is no such thing as a ‘wrong’ note - just listen to some free form jazz if you don’t believe me.
How do I get my child to practise?
1. Children under 10 generally need their practice to be supervised by you. I can’t emphasise this enough. The good news is that it needn’t be long - 10 to 20 minutes a day.
2. Practice needs to be every day, but definitely on the day of the lesson. If your child’s lesson is on a Thursday and she doesn’t start practising until Sunday, the memory of it will have faded and she will be left playing the bit she already knows, which will bore her and not help with progress. So straight after the lesson, sit down with your child at the instrument and ask her what she has learned and what her teacher has asked her to practise. Get her to scribble a note to herself. Practice soon after the lessons allows the information to move from short term to long term memory, so practise for the first few days after the lesson at the very least.
3. Don’t make it into a chore, try going to the instrument with them and asking to listen while they play. Ask them to teach you - children love this power inversion and hearing you make mistakes reinforces to them that mistakes are part of the learning process.
4. Your child needs clear, small goals. The teacher should make it clear when they don’t expect the piece to be perfect for the next lesson. We all know that old axiom that perfection is the enemy of progress. But perfection is not a motivator for young children - progress is.
5. Shyness: no one would be motivated to learn with an older sibling laughing at their mistakes in the background. Try to provide privacy, either with an electronic keyboard with headphones or by moving unhelpful family members to another room.
I hope this helps! Do leave a comment below if you have any other tips or thoughts for future blog posts!
Dr. Ash Cloke
