“Should I keep my child in lessons?”
You’ve enrolled your child in lessons, and they’re loving it. However, there’s one problem: They’re not willing to practice throughout the week. While practicing is super important for steady progression (such that I wrote a post on how to get an unmotivated student to practice), it can be easy to default to the idea that they may be too young for lessons. However, not every child who starts lessons is ready for steady progression. That’s completely fine.
That’s when we go into Music Exposure Mode, which can be just as valuable at your child’s stage of development. The goal of these lessons is not steady progression, but getting them to love making music, develop early skills along the way, and have fun! They definitely experience the benefits of music lessons like early math and language skills, memory, early cognition, split concentration, fine motor skills, confidence, performance skills, and much more, which will last them a lifetime (often leading to a competitive edge over peers). All these reasons why you likely thought lessons were a good idea in the first place. By keeping them in, you’re giving them this opportunity to develop all of these essential skills early, in 1 weekly half hour. You’re sneaking in learning through fun!
In Music Exposure mode, your child will have FUN making music, and will learn important concepts along the way. Without the pressure to practice at this stage, they will associate making music with enjoyment, which will always be the first and foremost thing even after they enter the age where they’re ready to practice regularly (with your guidance).
Eventually, they will get to the stage where they’re ready for steady progression: Taking lesson concepts and practicing them throughout the week to master them in preparation for the next challenge! At this point, they’ll need your guidance to keep them on a schedule of regular practice. It’s time to start the journey to develop discipline. But you don’t have to worry about that yet! Your instructor will let you know when it’s time.
Right now, you just think about the decision in front of you: Whether to withdraw them from lessons, or to keep them in. If they don’t like their lessons, and it’s a struggle to get them to do one, then it can be a good idea to give it a break, maybe try again at a later date (especially if they’ve taken lessons for the past 9 months or longer). As long as they’re loving lessons, though, if you keep them in, they WILL reap the benefits.
If you have any questions, please reach out to your instructor or to me, and we’ll be happy to help you figure it out!
Kim Harwood
Owner
North Peace Piano