Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum my student is crying in every lesson

and I have no idea why or what to do really...

She's 13 years old, her father is accompanying her in the lessons (since he has to bring her and it's not worth to drop her off to come back later to pick her up), and regardless of what I say, good or bad (and I don't get angry to my students) she... just cries!

Today she had her lesson, came in and had studies, yet when she lost it and I told her to start over, little by little she blushed and then she started crying. I asked permission from her dad and took her in another room to talk to her and she wouldn't say why... She actually said that she didn't know why and that she didn't know if she likes crying or not...

any ideas?

I'm baffled!

I have three crying students so far, all are perfectionist!

In your case,


She is not happy that she lost it, maybe she is embarrassed, maybe she is having a too high standard to herself. That is why she cried.

Just my two cents.

Perhaps, but for a perfectionist she's REALLY not studying or trying hard!...

Young perfectionists often don't work particularly hard. People sometimes think that "perfectionism" is a synonym for "hard working and very detail-oriented," but perfectionists are often quite different from this profile. A young person with perfectionist attributes often "gets" things easily enough that they get by with very little effort. As a result, they can fail to learn the repetitive detail work that leads to true mastery. And they can become quite flustered in situations that demand slowly gained skills. As a self-defense mechanism, I can easily imagine this sort of child avoiding even the attempt at hard work, both because they do not really know how to work in a concentrated fashion, and because trying opens up the possiblity of real failure that they cannot rationalize away or excuse.

Kids can never answer why. "I dunno." They're not verbal and not introspective, mostly.

It could be something serious, like depression.

But it could also just be a sensitive child, who's going to cry and can still function. If so, it might work to ignore it and give her a safe place to cry.

At that age, I would cry like that, it was difficult to stop. Sorry not to be of more help.

Well... at least I'm seeing that she isn't alone in this... I didn't cry when I was 13, but I did have my urges (and I'm a male), so... :-/

Still I'm unsure of what to do.

Have you pulled the father aside to have a one-on-one conversation? Perhaps he can give you some insights into the child's personality, or into current issues that she is facing. It may be simple, or complicated, but you'll never know until you ask the parents some clear questions.

I had a sensitive child, who would sometimes melt down if she received a stern glance. I told all her teachers not to panic, to just ignore it and give her space to recover. She grew out of it, mostly.

I am a textbook case of a perfectionist, and I think this characterization of a *young* perfectionist is spot-on.

Perfectionism and intelligence usually go hand in hand. Truly intelligent children are seldom sufficiently challenged to meaningfully run into the limits of what comes naturally to them before they reach their teenage years (and for some, it takes significantly longer than that). So when they do run into those limits, they tend to deal with it either by dropping the activity and trying something else, or by knowingly 'phoning it in' so that if they fail, they can still tell themselves the results would have been better if they had put in some effort. This way, it's not that there is something wrong with them for failing. It's that they chose to fail.

But they can still get very frustrated and/or emotional when they feel like they're failing, because up to this point, they've mostly never experienced anything like this. When, for the first ten or so years of your life, everything you try succeeds, then you don't learn that failure is supposed to be a normal part of life, or how to deal with it.

I think this girl is crying because she is running into her limits for what may be the first time in her life, and she has no idea what she's doing wrong that's causing her to fail, or how to fix it.

Someone needs to explain to her that it's OK to make mistakes. Everybody does, and it's not because you can't do something the way you want it the first time you try (or even the tenth time you try) that you will never be able to do it. The only assured path to true failure is giving up (or not even trying).

She might be too young to hear and really understand that message. I was, at thirteen. Even as late in my life as six months ago, I still hadn't fully grasped the concept. But you can try.

If that "someone" is parents at home, then piano teacher's job would be a lot easier!!

Hi Nikolas,

You have my sympathy. But I admit I'm chuckling thinking about you dealing with this situation. (Please forgive me.) And I'm so grateful I do not currently have a crier in my studio.

What I've found is that kids who cry easily show the exact same behavior at school. The parent can tell you if this is the case. At least it helps to know it's not YOU.

The oldest kid I had cry in lessons was 10. She definitely had learning problems.

Another read notes very easily, but had trouble with rhythm and would cry over working on it. She would also cry when she expected to move on from a piece, but that I assigned for another week. We looked at changing that expectation and made some progress with her having fewer episodes of crying.

I think kids cry when they are frustrated. You may be able to help your student look at her expectations, and replace them with more realistic expectations. She may expect to play fluently with only 2 days of practice each week. You could ask how much practice did she do with a particular piece. And then look at what progress would be reasonable with this amount of practice.

I wish you well! Hope you let us know how it turns out.

A couple other things to consider...

1. I know you said that you don't get angry with your students, but there could be other things you are doing that are contributing to her emotional state.

For some, its about meeting expectations, whether those are expectations that you, her father, or she has defined. Ensure that you look introspectively and consider what expectations you have placed on her. Are they fair given her skill level?

2. The second thing to investigate is if there is an outside issue that she is clamming up about. Maybe she doesn't want to be there but is being forced. Maybe the mistakes she makes in your lessons are the same ones she makes during practice at home that her father chastises her for. I am not saying this is the case in your situation, but I say this for the benefit of all to look deeper than what might appear on the surface.

Understanding our students and what makes them tick, whether it be personally, emotionally, or musically, is a key responsibility of us as teachers.

Or she could just be 13 and hormonal.

I am glad that no one has say this yet......

Something I've long meant to ask, and hope you won't take offense. Your posts nearly always suggest you are not a female, yet you work as a piano teacher. Are you male or female? And does it possibly contribute to cases like this one?

Nikolas! I am just kidding!! You know me!

Hah! Takes one to know one.

Me too. I did grow out of it, mostly ...

But it is a common issue among young teens and high school students.

Who knows if this young lady "suffers" from this problem. But that's why one needs to explore the issue with the parents. A bit of knowledge may go a long way toward adjusting the teaching technique to help with learning.

Could her dad wait in another room, outside of the studio area? I had a similar situation with a 13 year old student. Just the presence of her parent in the studio stressed her. Probably hormonal, as Mnniemay mentioned, but when her dad left the studio she stopped crying.
No offense, Piano Dad! Nothing against parents in the studio! But sometimes the kids are so hard on themselves and it feels like there are 2 teachers in the room with him/her.

another thought...
a violin teacher of mine took pride in making all of her students cry at every lesson.

None taken. It's a judgment call. I have argued in the past that teachers should not automatically exclude parents. They can be your best ally. But there are indeed situations in which the best option may be to put the parent in another room. I have no idea whether that tack is appropriate in this situation.

Yes, I agree completely. Every situation is unique. I am very grateful to have parents observing lessons in many situations.

This is certainly true. But you never know what's going on at home.

One of the factors that contributed to *my* fear of making mistakes at that age was the fact that I had a father who would hit me (and I do mean hit me, not 'slap me') when I did things like forget to dry the dishes, pick up the phone for him but mess up the number he needed to call back, or cross the street without looking to the left first.

I had a piano teacher at fifteen who seemed to *get* my fear without my having to tell her where it came from. I will be eternally grateful to that lady for giving me a place to experiment with not doing things right the first time, even if that was just half an hour a week. I didn't *get* it, then. I still tried to be perfect in every way, and because I was playing at a true beginner level back then, I often more or less succeeded. But I knew I felt safe with her, in a way that was fairly foreign to me at that point in my life. Sadly, she retired less than a year into my lessons with her.

Right now, I have another piano teacher who *gets it*, by the way. This one told me in so many words, in my third or fourth lesson with her, that it's OK to make mistakes. And she knows even less about where my fears come from than the first teacher did. But she, too, is giving me a safe place to experiment with making mistakes in front of others, thereby helping me grow as a person.

Often, the most valuable things a teacher can teach have nothing to do with the subject matter at hand.