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I started a new 6 year old student a couple months ago and I'm wondering if I should let him quit now. Parents say that for the first few weeks he was interested in practicing, but lately it's a real struggle to get him to sit down to practice and when he does, he plays through one piece and then leaves. Actually, I'm not sure that he ever did practice as I requested as he never answered "Did you practice this 5 times every day this week?", and only seemed confused. We did a full lesson as a practice session, checking off in the book when each thing was done, and then he still didn't check off anything in the following week. I told the parents what was expected and asked them to monitor his practice to get good practice habits in, but they haven't been doing that, they just trust that if their son says he did all his practicing that he has done it.

This is the first beginner I've taught that didn't have the parents helping at the beginning. He's also the youngest beginner I've taught. At this point he is always wanting to know what is coming up later in the book, when he can pass to the next level, and why he has to practice things again. In his mind playing through a song once should count as passing it, despite my repeated instruction that he has to be really good at it to get to pass (and he knows he's not "really good at it").

At the end of the last lesson I told the parent that without consistent practice he won't like piano lessons, and suggested more involvement with getting him to practice and practice correctly for two weeks to see if that helps. They wanted to try for a couple more months, and seems to be hoping that he'll pick up interest again without having to force practicing. However, except in the summer when I go month by month, I require commitment to a full semester and don't want to give the option to quit in October.

Tell them exactly what you wrote here, give it to them in writing, show THEM exactly what a practice session is and repeat clearly

"except in the summer when I go month by month, I require commitment to a full semester and don't want to give the option to quit in October."

If they aren't willing to commit ( and in my book that means "pay up front") , then tell them you can't accept their son at this time, and make it clear that they are wasting their money if they can't get him on board.

Maybe he is just too young for piano. Not all six year olds are up to dealing with it.

You are very lucky to have so many helpful parents. Most of the beginners I teach are completely on their own, and they definitely progress much slower than those with parental support and assistance.

Maybe he would like to go back to the old songs after some time? I agree with him repeating the same song again and again, especially because you are told to, is boring. I am not sure, but you said he is the youngest you've had. Consider him a case study I have no clue myself, but it seems to me you are expecting very much. This situation could change in any direction, I'd think.

I'm not surprised. This little kid is only six. Some six-year-olds can answer a multi-part question like that but many can't. There are four things you're asking there: Did you practise? Did you play it five times? Did you do this every day? Did you do this every day this week? I agree that the right sort of parental involvement would help enormously. But perhaps you also need to think about the way you approach teaching these younger students, which will be different from the way you approach things with the kids who are say, nine or ten.

I have two questions I ask the parents when taking on a new student. How old is the child? Does he or she WANT to learn to play the piano? I don't take boys under eight nor girls under seven.

I explain to the parents that the faster a child learns, the more he will enjoy the lessons and that the difference in learning capacity between a six year old and a nine year old is enormous. So much so that as a rule ( there are always exceptions) if I take a child at six and teach him for three years until he's nine and then take on a new nine year old beginner, by the age of ten and a half they will both be playing at pretty much the same level. Which means the child who started at six wasted a lot of time and parents' money for what is essentially the same result.

But a much more important thing is that the one which began at six, is much more likely to be bored. Sorry to tell you parents out there .... most children DO indeed follow a basic pattern of learning. Which is how school curriculae are formulated. I do not expect nor really want, parent's imvolvement in the lessons, beyond asking them to fit a half hour practice into the child's schedule. And I always ask the child directy if they agree to practice half an hour a day so they can play like this .... then I play a little bit of the Fur Elise or a Mozart Sonata

I have never required a "semester" obligation. Never. While it makes good business sense, it is to my mind putting undue pressure on the parents. And no matter what my credentials may be, I'm not the dean of a University. My suggestion is that you explain to the parents that perhaps waiting a couple of years would be the best course at this point. You cannot force a child to "like" anything. Just politely let him go.

Great answer right here. Need more of these insightful ones like this ..I agree . Lot of six years old will be confused as answering questions regarding one's responsibilities (which is a new thing as well for these youngsters ) are new territory and have to see from their perspective. Not from our adult hindsight-enabled perspective.

I'm glad you wrote about this, because I couldn't help thinking about that line as soon as I read it.

Actually I kept trying to picture the practice instruction itself for each day. Is it simply to play something repeatedly (5 times) each day? Play a piece each day 5 times? Or is there more to it?

I agree. If I wanted a six year old to perform some behavior 5x each day, I'd make a chart listing the days of the week, and five boxes next to each day. Show the child what behavior you want done, and then to mark one box (with a + or a sticker, or a smiling face, or something else the kid likes). Then he or she can see that there are 4 more boxes for that day.

Or maybe neither the kid, nor the parents, care enough about music -- _now_ -- to give it a coherent effort.

In which case, you'll just get more frustrated.

Sheesh! Who knew a 10-word sentence could have four questions in it! He is a year ahead in school, otherwise I don't think I would have taken him.

malkin - I asked him to make a tally up to five (which he knew how to do), and then put a check mark next to that when he reached 5, and we did this in the lesson together. Then when he practices tomorrow, he makes another tally to 5. If he doesn't do that this week, I'll have him get 5 toys to move across the piano, and vary what he does on each repetition, like "1st time tap and count, 2nd time say the words, 3rd time play & count, etc. The practice chart you suggested will be coming soon for all my students...

I really don't know what to do to motivate kids to practice.

Charles - I'm afraid of the kid not caring enough and creating more frustration for everyone. But how would I know if I'm beating a dead horse or trying to spur on a good horse? Can I just ask a 6-year old - "Do you want to learn to play piano" and take his word for it?

The weekly assignment is quite simple. There are new pieces and review pieces. New pieces, which are clearly labelled as such in the assignment book, are to be played 5 times through every day. When the pieces get more complicated, the instructions might change a bit, but that doesn't happen until much later.

Review pieces are ones already learned, and these are played 2 times through every day.

Played 5 times through, from beginning to end, both hands? Reading?

Do school teachers have to motivate the students so the students will do homework?

Yes, beginning to end. These songs are only one to two lines long, one note at a time. Some use both hands but they're always separate. Reading notes on the staff has not been introduced yet so the student finds the appropriate group of black keys and follows the finger numbers/up&down on the page.

I think depends on the culture and the family and the attitude.

School teachers IMHO have to generate curiosity, propose the right amount of achievable and stretch targets and help finding and using the right tool to conquer such targets...
To me, this would be already a fantastic job on the teacher side.

The rest is up to the family.

As a parent of an 8 year old student(my son started at 6), I would say please don't ask your student whether he/ she wants to learn the piano. In our house, when my son chose to learn play piano he knew once he made that choice, he had to follow through for a year and do his best as we don't produce "quitters". Each year, he gets to decide whether he wants to continue or not but once we commit, he has no choice for that year and I would not want him to think he has a choice.

Parents who sign their kids up for "casual" piano lessons may have the mindset that their involvement is limited to drops offs and pick ups.

The problem with piano is that if you are dealing with a parent with the pick up and drop off mindset, the young child isn't going to be successful. Perhaps, there are a few super motivated self-practicing 6 year olds but I can tell you they didn't/don't live in our house. I think self- motivated piano practicing six year olds may be as common in our area though as magical unicorns. However the myth that these self-practicing young kids exist is pervasive.

I'll confess that I originally was of the casual pick-up/drop-off mindset but I became invested very quickly in his piano lessons.

Do you think you'll be able to change the mindset of the parent? I think it's the only long term workable solution.

We rarely send homework from preschool, but we do have to motivate kids to participate in class. There are quite a number of ways to refuse: just sitting, or screaming, flopping, throwing things, hitting, kicking, spitting...

Arghhh, I think perhaps your approach just may need a little adjusting for this age of student. I don't think at that age they have any idea what it means to do homework, practice, etc. All they want to do it play. Depending on his emotional development (as well as language development, which is often slower in boys), he may not quite have made the connection between hard work = better results. That takes a while.

I would lower expectations of practicing to begin with. If he plays once through a piece, that is just fine. If he does something at the piano 5 days a week, that is awesome.

During lessons, do a lot of musical activities away from the bench, dancing/moving to music, singing, clapping, games, etc. Make it fun, interactive, and above all, creative. Think of them less as piano lessons and more like general music lessons. Teach him about long and short, high and low, fast and slow, things like that. Improvise music at the piano with him, play rhythms with various percussions instruments (you can buy inexpensive ones or make some shakers yourself with an empty water bottle filled with uncooked rice, popcorn kernels, beads..whatever..just be sure to glue to tops on ).

The most important thing with children this age is not to get them to play piano sooner than if they waited 2 more years - because they won't. The goal is to get them listening and responding to music and exposed to a little bit of notation, note naming, key names, things like that, so that when they are of the age to be a bit more serious, this stuff is more second-nature to them.

It is a challenge and I know many teachers who won't take them this young - and that's fine. You need to decide for yourself if you feel it's worthwhile for the child to do it now or wait (and if you are the teacher for him if they proceed now). Many parents push their children into lessons for everything too soon. Often if a teacher says they are too young and it's best to enroll them in Kindermusik or some other early childhood program first and come to them when they are older, more often than not the parent will just go find a private teacher who will take them. So then if you are willing, *you* become that early childhood music teacher.

^ So very well put.
The younger the child, the more important the parent's involvement.

Parents who have not been through music lessons themselves are sometimes under the impression that a child who likes to play the piano will always want to practice. This is not so. Tell these parents lots of stories about yourself or about other (anonymized) students, help them understand that a child who likes the piano but doesn't feel like practicing is perfectly normal, and encourage them to find a good routine to support practicing at home. When there has obviously been a good practice week you can give the PARENTS a lot of positive feedback (they need it too) and find out what they did that worked so well.

If the parents refuse to support practicing at home, you can still use the lessons as a chance to have fun and expose the child to music, but it won't be possible to make progress and become better at playing the piano. As long as the parents understand that this is what lessons can be under those conditions and they're still willing to drop off, pick up and pay, there's nothing wrong with that.

If you don't want to work with students/families who don't practice a certain amount per week, put it in your studio policies and be ready to let students go at the end of the year if they haven't been practicing enough.