Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum When parental involvement crosses the line

Yes I did provide my studio policy regarding make ups, no shows, etc., yet certain families do continue to ask for and expect make ups, and in certain instances, I do make exceptions. But I do not have language about recitals, discussions with parents, and will incorporate that into a revised policy in the near future. Thanks for the suggestions.

Chasingrainbows, sounds like you're chasing rainbows!

From your description it sounds almost like the game is to manipulate you, keep you busy, by asking seemingly reasonable questions, to which answers have already been given. To what end, I don't know. Maybe they do it all the time, with everyone. Spending 20 minutes talking about yourself, well, I know a few people who like to do that. Looking intelligent, perhaps, by asking lots of questions? Feeling in control?

It sounds like they're tapping lots of your energy. If you really can't/don't want to fire them, then how about a different strategy:

- Can you clarify the need for HS practice?
- I have already clarified why your son needs to practice HS. What exactly did you not understand in what I said earlier? or: I can only repeat myself. If you didn't get it then, you won't get it now. or: I don't think explaining this to you again is an effective use of teaching time. My advice is: HS.
And: ask them to leave on time.

You will need to keep time strictly, asking them to leave whether you have another student or not. You owe them nothing. You are a nice person. You give them an inch and they take a mile. Then everyone gets used to it. You will need to be very consistent and firm.

Yep, I think ten thumbs has nailed the game.

May I ask how much of this saga you have shared with the store manager? I suspect that in this case s/he would be accepting of a decision to dismiss this student.

susan, I've shared all of it, but store mgr is typical - overwhelmed, and only gets half of what you tell her and is totally customer oriented.

I would not expect him to be anything but totally customer oriented, unless he has difficulty finding teachers.

You are encountering one of the standard difficulties of being an employee.

Kick this student and his Mother to the curb. If the store gives you a hard time, ask them to assign the family to another teacher (poor thing!). They are NEVER going to be happy!

"They are NEVER going to be happy!"

True, to a point. People like this are 'happy' when they have a good chance to whine, complain, and make their problems someone else's fault (for example, having a child that is stupid).

But, hey, everyone is capable of growth, even your student and her mother. "Never" is a long time, even for them.

Strictly for your own mental health and not for anyone else's, you could start translating everything the mother says so that you hear the opposite. In fact, it could be interesting if you would write us a letter with one of these 'conversations' translated. I predict your problems will vanish, one way or another.

I figured this out when I lived in San Francisco, which has an unusually high proportion of lowlifes on the street, per capita--- three or four per block, on the average. Instead of hearing them say, "Spare a little change, spare a little change," I translated this and started hearing them say, "Have a nice day, have a nice day."

This is not an endorsement of outright neurosis, nor of being mean-spirited and ungenerous. Rather, that we are better off investing in things we would like to see more of, rather than less of.

I realize that the distinction can be subtle.

OK, I suggested to this complaining, critical parent that she find another teacher with whom she would be happier. She chose to continue with me. Now I am free to . . . . .

Have fun completing the sentence with many ideas, serious or not.

A teacher is not so much an employee as a freelance professional.
A customer dealing with a professional does have a role, but lay people may not know what that is. Even if you hire an accountant, you must provide the proper documents and be available for questions. A customer may think that he is the "boss". What you really need to do is request a service, and then let the professional provide the service according to that person's expertise, and cooperate.

The parent should make clear what her wishes are: competence at the piano, understanding music, for example. The teacher decides how that is brought about - a parent doesn't have a role in how it's done (HT, HS, etc.). This is where it's going wrong. I think even a piano teacher entrusting her child to another piano teacher has to respect that teacher's approach. If you are uneasy about the results of your child's lessons, then you can ask about that and discuss your goals (are they reasonable?), and how you can help. But you don't meddle in how the teacher is teaching.

I don't know what you are talking about.

Chasingrainbows works out of a store owned by someone else.



She is experiencing the travails of the employee whose interests don't always fully align with the those of the person she works for. If she was a private teacher with her own studio (in her home) she could behave as a truly independent professional.

As it stands, for her "boss" the store owner, the customer (this insecure and/or ill-mannered mom) is king.

Just this morning, as I was traveling by Amtrak I thought about this whole parent issue..How I could almost classify parents by various kinds of behaviors. There are the participating parents who genuinely express an interest in the progress of their child, and generally do make it a point, more often than not to sit in on lessons. Or at least they acknowledge receiving e-mailed assignments with comments on how to best improve technique, pieces etc.

When a parent has to exercise CONTROL by diminishing the value of the teacher, then for me, it's time to call it quits.

If some of these parents want to basically teach their own kids, and not allow the teacher the parameter to impart instruction, then I say, either why don't you teach your own child or obtain a teacher in synch with your philosophy of education. Life is too short to get bogged down with interpersonal issues that lead nowhere fast.

bmbutler, yes I've told the store that she should switch to another store teacher, but the store doesn't want to do that.

ten thumbs, thanks! I actually followed up her second email about more clarity with regard to HS practice by stating that I had explained it in the prior email and cut and pasted the prior explanation to the email. I like your diplomatic, yet to the point language. I will use that in the future.

music32, I agree 100%. I welcome parental involvement and parent and student questions until it becomes rude and offensive. She admitted that she told her son to ask me why he had to practice HS when his prior 2 teachers didn't ask him to (to which I responded very positively and explained in great detail to him and her). I suspect she is the reason he always starts off the lesson asking if I will make up his late arrival, or when the lesson is over, he asks me if I have another lesson waiting. I feel on the defensive now. It's been a barrage of incidents -- some small and easy to overlook, but when added together with questions such as "how does _____ a particular instruction "improve the student" and why more theory isn't covered in the lesson (it is covered in every lesson which I've told her repeatedly), well, it becomes intrusive and IMO offensive.

I do think that there are some strange people out there, who are particularly needy, or seek attention, or who have strange ways of achieving gratification. They make it their business to go around seeking good subjects for their ends - people who will give individual attention, or engage in conversation. When they find a good person for this, they can latch on and really stick tenaciously.

As musicians, music teachers, we are very involved in our profession. We think carefully about, for example the need for HS practice, or scales, or note reading, or whatever. We do like to explain what we are doing and why. This can make us really quite vulnerable.

I have more experience of this from some charity work that I do - sometimes we end up being 'used and abused' by the particular members of the public, and then it turns out workers from other charities have been treated similarly by the very same person who clearly has a problem. It just leads to this sense of sniffing out those for whom the process of interaction seems more important than anything else. I just don't like that feeling of being manipulated.

It is quite possible, chasing, that if you stop it dead, they will move on.

Sorry you're having to deal with this.

tenthumbs, if this were a private student, I would have dropped them long ago. She wants to continue with me, and my store doesn't want her to switch teachers. You are absolutely correct --she loves being the center of attention, making suggestions to me, talking about her background and her son's extracurricular activities. She is perfectly at ease asking for more of everything, my time, make ups, credits, more clarity, more explanations, more justifications. It's relentless and very draining. There's no pleasing this person. I started out very accomodating, very attentive, very accessible, but I feel it's become an unsurmountable task now. I didn't mean to keep venting about this particular parent, but I want to be "clear" that, IMO, I've gone over and above. I understand that as teachers, what we take for granted as necessary, such as HS practice, may seem foreign to students and/or parents and they have every right to ask for an explanation. But when they then ask how it improves the student, I feel that is an indication of lack of trust in my methods. Isn't that the goal of everything we teach? To improve the student's musical ability?

So where do you stand now? You've gotten various opinions on what to do. My feeling is you've made your decision but have trouble following through with it. If I were you, I'd contact your boss and explain that you've made your decision: you will not be able to adequately serve your other students with this draining situation. You WILL quit teaching this student. What you fear is that you will get fired. I doubt you will. In all likelihood you will get more respect from your boss. Please let us know your decision soon, as this is starting to drain me! (Just kidding!)

Well, you've got to appeal to the source of money.

No problem, chasingrainbows.

Thanks for the explanation. I've been trying to catch up on the numerous posts since I last wrote, and I can better understand now why you're frustrated with this parent. Seems like she won't be satisfied with you, so why she keeps signing up with you is a mystery to me. What especially stands out for me is what seems like a constant abuse of your time, both the lateness before and chat sessions after the lesson. I think you sound a lot like a certain kindly young teacher (me, lol) who was inclined to be lenient about things like that, as well as makeup time--yet I quickly and painfully began to find out that if you're inconsistent in sticking to policy, it can make your life difficult faster than you ever expected--and your students/parents lose respect for your authority and begin to control you, as others have mentioned, just the reverse effect of what I tried to gain from being lenient. But I know it's easy for me to say this, not knowing the people or the exceptional circumstances you've been faced with. One thing's for sure, it's a good warning to people like me to be consistently firm about policy.

Want to get rid of a student gracefully?

A few ideas:

Take advantage of opportunities to suggest a "break" from lessons. I've done this a few times. The students never returned anyway. But I like the suggestion that future piano/music study is always possible.

"With school, sports, etc. starting up, Jonny may need some time to adjust. You may want to skip lessons for "a month or two. Of course we can't hold the exact spot without payment but something will surely open up."

"Goodness, you need to miss two lessons because of vacation/overscheduling. Why don't you save yourself some money by stopping lessons temporarily. Of course, we can't hold the exact spot, etc.