I am very new to this forum and have loved reading everyone's experiences and advice. Now I have a question of my own.

I have a 6 year old female student that just started with me about 2 months ago (she has had about 9 lessons now). She is one of the sweetest little girls I have ever met but we have a big problem. She gets so easily distracted! When we start a piece, she usually gets about 2 or 3 measures into the song and then suddenly stops, takes her hands off the piano and starts asking me questions (completely off topic) or telling me about her day or something else in the room. I have told her several times that we want to keep our hands on the piano and not talk until we are done with the song. I try to stay very encouraging and correct her in a pleasant and happy manner, but it just doesn't sink in! In her last lesson it took almost 20 minutes of her 30 minute lesson to get through an 8 measure piece that she had been practicing all week, and we still didn't make it all the way through without talking! I try to stop her as soon as I sense she is going to talk or move her hands, by telling her keep going, we can talk after the piece is over, but she still takes her hands off the piano and starts telling me something completely off topic.

I have spoken to her parents about this several times and have even asked them to sit in on the lessons. But they both speak English as a second language and don't seem to understand what I am trying to tell them. The one time they agreed to sit in on the lesson, their phone rang within the first 5 minutes so they got up and left and didn't come back in. Now, they usually come in and tell me they will sit in the waiting area.

I really need to get through to her and her parents, but I don't want to come across as being mean or harsh. Do ya'll (yes I am from Texas!) have any suggestions or advice? I would greatly appreciate what you have to offer.

Hi there,
I have a few ideas that you could try:

1. You could to give her some kind of incentive to keep going. Perhaps she could earn a playing card for every bar of music she plays in a row. You could lay a card down as she plays each bar (on the music stand or keyboard where she can see it). Then at the end you can count up how many cards she earned.
Of course, she doesn't take those home, "because you need them for next week." Other counters would work too - just don't make it candy or food because the need for treat incentives might linger for much too long.

2. Have a mini concert during the lesson - she could "perform" one of her better pieces. Remind her that that means she needs to play the whole piece through without stopping. You could put a stuffed animal out on a chair to be the audience. If she does so without stopping, you can make a big deal about how much the stuffed animal enjoyed the performance.

3. Would it help to play along with her - you can push her ahead by continuing to play and she may not have as much urge to stop.

4. Try sitting a little further away from her. If you have two pianos, sit at the other piano. Even better, play along from the other piano. A little distance might make her less conversational.

5. Would singing along to the song help her? If she can read, you both could sing the words that accompany the song. If she can't read, you could say the note names as she plays.

Those are all the ideas I have at the moment. Good luck!

trh, I think it's important to listen to each story long enough to get the emotional content. Then I say something to validate the emotion (happy story..."That's a GOOD friend" or "How wonderful for you"...sad story "What a BUMMER!" or "That IS a disappointment." And then redirect their attention back to the music.

If one or two stories continue I may interrupt and say "I'd like to hear about it, but I want to have time to show you this new piece". And redirect to the task at hand.

Make it into a game. Start with her hands in her lap. Tell her "on your mark, get set, go". Count the measures as she finishes with a little more excitement in your voice for each measure. Give a cheer and some praise when she finishes.

Sorry but my advice is that she is not ready to have lessons.

Have her restart when she can sit still for 15 minutes and concentrate (on anything) which mom and dad can work on at home.

I thought piano2's advice was brilliant, though lilylady may be in the right here if none of that advice works.

Have you tried to be less pleasant and less happy? You don't have to be all stern and grouchy, but try a neutral tone and neutral attitude. Ignore the girl's attempts to get off-topic. If she starts yapping, wait in silence. An awkward silence can be a very powerful non-verbal cue to students who get chatty because they want to "provoke" a response from you. If necessary, change your tone of voice (lower, more stern) to indicate that you mean business. Don't smile unless the girl is doing what you want her to do. Don't praise her unless she is truly doing a great job.

That's one of the "tricks" I picked up very quickly while I was student-teaching. If you come across as being too friendly or too nice (to some students, not all), you won't get very much done in lessons.

This works for me very well. I'm a rather soft-spoken person, but I'm very direct in the words I say and I don't let kids get away with poor behavior, and they pick up on this. I am always nice and respectful, of course, I never insult the child, but I make sure they know we are to stay on task if they tend to get distracted easily or tend to chatter.

Apart from doing this, I agree with the suggestion of playing with the student, although this also presents more difficulties in playing that you won't want to do it with every piece she plays (staying with another's tempo, not correcting a mistake, getting distracted by hearing another person playing).

Having an agreement with her ahead of time is important. Something as simple as M&Ms on the piano (say 5) and then each time she stops playing to talk, you take away an M&M. She best whatever M&Ms are leftover at the end of the lesson. If you don't want to do candy you can do something else, as long as there is a visual reminder of how she's doing and what the goal is.

You can also be sure to do some activities away from the piano, like dancing to the music with a scarf or playing a percussion instrument or marching...things like that to break it up. Also remember that young children learn best if the same concept is introduced in 3 learning styles (visual, audio, kinesthetic) so that gives you opportunity to switch gears if she seems fidgety.

If none of these things work, then you could suggest shorter lessons for now.

Lots of great ideas in the other posts. If those don't work, then she's just not ready for lessons. I would flat out tell the parents that she's not ready. Use Google translator and practice saying "she's not ready for lessons yet, etc." in their language or maybe you could write it on a piece of paper for them to read.

Yes, as a last resort. This reminds me of something a new voice student told me the other day at her first lesson. She is a very sweet girl (11 years old) and said that she took piano in 1st grade and her teacher said she wasn't cut out for piano or wasn't talented enough to play piano or something, when in fact it was just a matter of her not being mature enough to sit still at that time. I feel so bad for her that she was told this and of course her parents believed the teacher and didn't pursue lessons later when she was older.

When kids have attentional vulnerabilities, upping the motivation usually helps in keeping them more focused. I work with kids with learning disabilities and ADHD (I teach piano as part of our school's instrumental music program) and I find that their ability to focus really depends on how badly they want to work on the song or exercise we're doing. If they don't perceive it as important or interesting, they won't expend the effort it takes to stay focused. Sometimes we're better off choosing a piece or exercise that's more of a reach, perhaps even a bit too difficult, but that is highly desirable to them and therefore easier for them to devote their attention to it. They end up retaining more and using better technique.

Another thing you could try is to create a visual to hold up whenever she starts to get off track. You can brainstorm one with her, even - something that she finds humorous and can relate to. Perhaps a Stop sign in red and a Go sign in green, so that you can hold up the Go sign whenever she starts talking to you and hold up the Stop sign when she's finished the song?

The suggestions about having her earn something for staying focused are great - one possible reward could be talking time. If she can play through the entire piece without stopping once, she can earn 60 seconds to tell you whatever she'd like. You can use a kitchen timer and set it, and when it rings, it's time to get back to playing.

If she loves to tell stories, maybe she can make up a story about the song she's playing. As she plays each part, she can tell you what is happening in the story. She can also make up simple melodies that go with the stories that she is telling you. Kids love to visualize, and I find that it helps them to play with more feeling if they are picturing an army marching up a hill, or a swan gliding across the lake, or whatever. Giving the lesson an added visual component might help to focus her attention, so if that means drawing little pictures for each part of the song that will help her orient to the page, it might be time in the lesson well spent.

These suggestions would work best if it's really just her immaturity or attentional vulnerability. But it may also be that this little girl is desperate for someone to listen to her, if she doesn't have friends or a caregiver at home who can give her the attention she needs. From the sound of things, though, she sounds more scattered and unfocused than emotionally needy. Just something to rule out before you put structures in place to eliminate the off topic talking.

Finally, I've seen kids stonewall teachers with random questions and stories about the day because they really don't want to do the task - as avoidance. You could rule this out, but if it turns out that she doesn't really like piano and is trying to avoid it during the lessons, maybe lessons aren't really for her.

Thank you for all the advise! I will try out some of the suggestions you guys have offered and see how it goes. If it doesn't help then I will need to talk to her parents about waiting just a little longer. She definitely seems to like her lessons so hopefully these will help a lot.

Its so hard to tell with young kids, but I agree that it could be ADHD, though it may be difficult to diagnose for someone that age, and it could simply be that they have not learned how to focus.
If it is ADHD, then the kid isn't intentionally interrupting the lesson because of a desire to skip it. Instead, other things pop into mind and suddenly seem important, and the kid forgets about the piano in front of them. It's like a reverse of tunnel vision; you see everything except the thing you were focusing on a moment ago.
The suggestions from the posters above are great ways to help the kid stay focused. It can also help her learn ways to stay focused in school, and that can be a wonderful benefit to her. Basically, keep her motivated and reward her for paying attention, and be disapproving when she doesn't. There's not an exact science to it, but if you can steer her attention back to piano then you are doing a great job. If her reaction is along the lines of "oh yeah, the piano, I forgot about that!", then you have a bit more to work with.


Please keep us updated on your progress with the student, and her progress with piano. Too often there is good news but it doesn't get told, and we miss the chance to all learn a bit more.

Children do lose concentration after a short period and I have one wonderful pupil who is naturally gifted that can be a bit naughty sometimes, so I have learnt her strengths and weaknesses, and play to her strengths. I tend to spend 10 mins on each section i.e. one piece then another and scales, if I see her losing concentration then I turn it into a game, get her to role a big funky dice I have and then get her to play her song or scale this amount of times.

If there is something she really doesn't want to do in one lesson but will quite easily do it next week then I will cover it once then recap in the next lesson.

boy these are wonderful suggestions (I'm thankful that all my students are well focused at the moment - but the little boys are coming into my life soon)

My cat-o-nine-tails at least stops them from
yawning during lessons ... but strangely, they don't come for lessons any more.

'the little boys' being the three brothers who were starved and beaten for the first 5 -6 yrs. of their lives. They've been affected but all read (tho one is pretty slow).. and the biological son of the parents who is more advanced. The 3 of the would be hard pressed to weigh 100 pounds together at ages 6,6 and 7.

They will be a challenge but thankfully focusing and behavior are not issues... i don't think.

There is no way this can be real. Everyone knows it would take way more juice to take down a 10 year old than a two year old.

Thank you for all the humorous comments guys! They made me laugh. I had a great lesson with her last week, I tried a few things that you guys suggested and they helped a lot. The funny thing I discovered last week was what she thought was the most fun. I have an eraser (about 2 inches long) that I keep on the piano during lessons, she was so intrigued by it that she did anything I asked of her just to use it after we were done. While going over some theory, she intentionally wrote her letters backwards or would write the wrong thing so she could erase it. While this did take more time, it was nothing compared to what we have been dealing with the last few months. It really cracks me up what makes kids happy. I also let her have time to just talk after we played through her songs, she seemed to really like that.

You might also try a ticket activity. For every time she focuses well, she earns a ticket. She can use the ticket to do whatever you wish to allow -- some special activity, talk time or a prizes from the treasure box.

Funny about the eraser. So, you get an index card and draw five lines (or stars, or music notes....) on it. And every time she stays focused for 5 minutes, she gets to erase a line! If they are all erased by the end of the lesson, maybe she can get a sticker or something.

I have a boy who apparently cannot concentrate, however, two tricks works on him:

1. Tell him that you are timing him and take out your stop watch and time him in a song. If I time him, he can sight-read one page of Piano Adventure Level 1 song in 1 minute. If I am not timing him, it will take more than 5 minutes because he cannot concentrate!!

2. Bring a stuff animal such as a duck and put it next to his ear. What happen here is that the boy does not know the answer when I ask him, so, the duck will have to tell him the answer and he will tell me the answer. This work when I ask him a question such as what is “forte” means? What is the name of this note? ETC….I know this is weird, but apparently, according to this boy, the duck actually tell him the answer, that is why he knows the answer. Okay, well, as long as this works on him, I will use it.

Just want to share.