My daughter is almost 8 y.o. For over a year, she has asked to learn to play a piano. After months of research on keyboards and visits to piano stores, we bought a used full size keyboard, which she likes. So we started lessons with a teacher who has over 20 years experience, and will only teach your child, if your child wants to take lessons, not being forced to take lessons. (The teacher was recommended by a friend whose 4 children takes lessons from her.) I like the teacher, she tells me my child is doing well, learning very quickly, and gives a reasonable amount of homework. My daughter has taken lessons for about 6 weeks.
My daughter is now saying she does not want to take piano, that it's too hard. My daughter has not stuck with any extra-curricular for more than six months in the past. Takes gymnastics for a few months, then loses interest for example. We've tried gymnastics, dance classes, soccer, swimming (each of these activities on and off at different places, will take classes for a few months, but then lose interest, then she asks to do it again a few months later). I'm not sure how to teach my daughter how to stick with something so she can get good at it, instead of just taking classes a few months, then dropping out, then signing up a few months later. It's frustrating to me, and expensive. I believe in doing only one activity at a time so she doesn't get over committed. Currently she is taking dance classes and likes it. She has taken dance classes from the same teacher each summer for the past 3 summers, but when fall rolls around, she likes to switch to gymnastics, even though she is better at dance. I really believe that taking piano lessons is good for her education and learning to read music will help her if she ever wants to play other instruments. So do I let her drop out and wait until she asks to take lessons again? I really don't want this to be a power struggle and make her hate piano lessons. Should I make her earn the money for lessons, and then maybe she would appreciate them more? Right now, she does not get allowance because we pay for extracurriculars. Maybe I should start giving her an allowance, and if she asks to sign up for something, she pays for it? Any ideas are appreciated. BTW, I don't remember every dropping out of anything I wanted to do as a kid, I stuck with it for the entire season. I played softball for 8 years, volleyball for 3 years, cheer for several years, etc.. so this is really hard for me to understand.
Kids will often quit things when they are hard, unless you make her stick with it.
Just tell her that she's doing it. If she quits because it's hard, it's because she's being lazy. Keep taking her. Eventually, she's going to change her mind because it will get easier with time and practice. But you have to push her.
Piano is a tough one at this age- I call it the make or break age. :) What kind of piano music she exposed to? The love first has to come from the music itself. I took for over 12 years and began at 8 years old. It's possible the music is not appealing to her, therefore not inspiring her to practice or really engage playing the piano. Talk to her teacher about her repertoire, and ask if it's possible if she could incorporate some more popular pieces in with her standard piano pieces. Use the popular pieces as reward for practicing the other pieces.
This worked very well for me- I used to have a Disney book for beginner piano that I would get to play out of if I did well with my other pieces. I loved that thing! I got to learn to play songs from Cinderella and Snow White. I really impressed my friends with those at slumber parties. ;)
Hope this helps!
I wanted to quit too when I started. I couldn't figure out half notes. I hated it. I wanted to play with my friends and hated my mom because I had to practice first.
I now hold a bachelors degree in Music Education with an emphasis in piano and made a career teaching music both privately and in the public schools. Within reason, kids really shouldn't call the shots. I had no idea I was as good as I was and would have thrown it all away were the choice left up to me. It was a battle my mother chose to fight and I am so thankful she did.
That being said, I don't believe that every child is cut out for music lessons. Some learn quickly and take to it easily, others plod along but will never truly make it a part of their lives. Which one is your daughter?
You've made a fair investment in the hopes that your daughter would take to it. I think it's fair to make her follow through with this. Pianos are expensive and she is taking your commitment to this lightly. I believe it's time she learned that that is not acceptable to flit from hobby to hobby while you're footing the bill.
How about lessons for a year to see if it's something she really could excel at? Hopefully you have a good teacher that could recognize whether or not your daughter has a real aptitude for music and give you a fair assessment over the next few months. If, after a year, you feel that your daughter would most likely do better in another area, then give that a chance instead.
I hate to say it, but Riley J's advice of 'piano in the spring' was terrible. Nine months in between lessons only puts you back at square one with no real progress. If you're going to learn music, you need to be dedicated, and that means consistent music lessons and practicing throughout the year. That doesn't mean you can't do other things as well, but you can't take a break and expect to pick it up from where you left off.
Give it a year (or as long as it takes to pay off that keyboard :) and see how she does. If she truly takes to it and makes something of that talent (whether that be in piano or another instrument that she moves to instead), you'll be eternally grateful you fought the battle.
It doesn't sound like she's losing interest & dropping out... It sounds like she has MANY interests, and is choosing to keep doing them in the only way she can: cyclically.
Dance in summer
Gymnastics in fall
________ in winter
Piano in spring
Honestly... If she's only allowed one at a time, how else would she get to pursue her interests/passions?
Summer is here, time to move into dance.
Similarly... YOUR sports were seasonal. Hers seem year round (dance, gymnastics, piano). Really, she's no different than you (3 'seasons' of dance do far, yes?), EXCEPT she doesn't have an 'end of season' and is being labeled a quitter for it. Poor kid. Seriously, how dies one 'finish' a year round sport/activity? No matter what she'd have to quit. 6months? That's a VERY long 'season'.
This is hard for me because I was forced to take piano and violin for years.
I hated it to the point of crying through practicing.
My sister really took to piano and learned to play flute and guitar as well.
She enjoys playing instruments and plays them to this day.
I was finally allowed to quit piano and violin in high school and I swear my instructors heaved a sigh of relief.
I couldn't ever really say I played the instruments so much as I tortured some sound out of them.
It turns out I was a singer and I really enjoyed making music with my voice.
I was in several groups at school and even in a select group that I had to audition for.
I even joined the church choir.
So learning to read music was not a complete loss - the piano and violin lessons ultimately were a good thing even though they were only a bridge to something else that became a passion for me.
Since she begged for it - have her stick with it for a whole year.
Make clear to her that when she makes choices she should think them through carefully beforehand and 1 year is the minimum commitment she has to stick with it.
It might take her awhile to find her niche, but learning to carefully weigh a decision is a skill which will serve her well her whole life.
Sometimes piano lessons teach you more than just about playing the piano.
Did you talk to her beforehand and tell her that it was her decision to learn to play the piano so your buying the keyboard meant she needs to stick with it? Or was it just left open that she could make the decision to quit at any point if she chose?
I guess you need to decide IF you're going to allow her to quit, or use this as a life lesson teaching her to honor her commitments.
two things.
My friend has a 10 and 12 yr old in which she did force them in a way to cont piano since age 6. They are amazing now and although they struggle with the ins and outs of practice and dedication....they are proud of what they accomplished. They may be old enough to make the choice to stop now, but they now choose to keep it going. So I would give it some time. One of these kids have some ADD issues....and the piano is certainly a help of focus to that in a way.
I think it is a time where kids need to try things and stick with them for a year to make sure they are really enjoying something special or a gift that they endure. My child is not allowed to just kick the sport when it was not something that my child really took a lot of time into. So I think as long as a parent conts to allow them to start /stop start / stop..... it will be hard to help them really commit to something.
1st Rule in my house is my daughter must do something after school. gymnastic, dance or something. She usually chooses Ice skating and gymnastics. But she does rotate out. But the 2nd rule of the house is she must finish out the session paid for. I do not actually want her stuck on just one afterschool item. I want her to try them all and see where she fits and likes the best. She has done swimming, karate and quite a few others. In the end she usually just goes back to gymnastics and ice skating. She still made it to the advance classes but because I didn't push her to do just one thing she appreciates her choices more.
What is the conversation like with your daughter, when you agree to sign her up for things? If you don't give her any "rules" or set high expectations, of course she wants to quit when the newness wears off...
And, evidently, that has never been problematic, b/c she has been allowed to quit.
i would not force it. i get the frustration of her vacillation, but jamming her into won't make her like it.
rather than have open-ended time frames, make an agreement with her going in. and keep it short. 'if you want piano/horseback riding/martial arts/rock climbing lessons you may have them. i'm going to commit to paying for them for 3 months. you must commit to taking them for that long. at the END of the time period you can quit if you want, but no discussions or whining or complaining during the agreement period.'
edited to add that many are suggesting a year as a commitment period. that is quite reasonable for an adult, but i think some of you are forgetting how incredibly, interminably long a year is for a kid.
khairete
S.
This should tell you not to spend money on keyboards or similar things right away.
It's okay for your daughter to try things out, and decide she doesn't like them. Your daughter has a different personality than you do. If she chooses to stick with piano, then she needs to be willing to practice, but you won't be able to force her to excel at it. If she's not a natural pianist, eventually she will quit, no matter how many times you force her to practice.
Just letting you know, from experience, that they need to be internally motivated, and anything you force them to do will end sooner or later, with a whole lot of battling in between.
Just don't spend much money on anything she tries out, until you know that she actually loves it.
This is tough call. Your daughter seems to be involved in a healthy number of activities, so you don't want to push it and become tiger mom. (I don't think you are though!) My six-year-old daughter asked for piano lessons, and I still won't buy her a piano or keyboard, because I'm not convinced that she will stick with it. We are borrowing a keyboard from a friend, and the piano teacher comes to our house.
She has been taking lessons for four months though, and she still likes the lessons. One thing I refuse to do is make her do her piano homework. I yell at her enough already because I am forcing her to learn Chinese. That is our big battle. I explained to her piano teacher that I won't fight about piano lessons or homework. If my daughter wants to stop taking lessons, that will be it. Her teacher is very understanding about my position, so she spends some time before every lesson reviewing the previous week's lesson. My daughter is probably progressing at a slightly slower pace than other kids, but I have no problem with that.
Have you asked her what it is about piano lessons that she doesn't like? Is it the fact that she gets less time to play with her friends? Or she thinks the homework is too hard? Or maybe she doesn't have good chemistry with her teacher? My daughter thinks she is the next Taylor Swift ;-) so she loves the idea of being able to play her songs on the piano. She is a long way away from that, but it is definitely keeping her going.
I guess I don't have any answers for you. Sorry! But maybe if you can get to the bottom of why your daughter no longer wants to play piano, you can come up with a way to get her motivated again. Even if it means finding a new teacher. Good luck!
I'm answering from the perspective of a mom with a daughter who takes piano lessons too, and violin (at school only in the school year, with a private teacher over the summer months).
The Queen is right -- use incentives. You mention having your daughter pay for the lessons herself, but can you see how that would only make it worse for her and she won't want to do anything at all if it costs her cash? I know how tight eight-year-old girls can be with cash.
So-- incentives. Make a weekly practice chart and work out (before you talk to her) what the incentive system will be. You need to know her currency; what does she really, really want right now that she will want in a few weeks and months? Set up something where each day she writes in the number of minutes practiced and have a daily minimum she must meet. If she makes her X minutes a week of practice, at the end of the week she gets reward Y (ice cream outing? Lego figure if that's her thing?). If she achieves her minutes for, say, three or four consecutive weeks, she gets larger reward Z (book under $5.00? One product from the smelly section of the bath store?). I suspect, from what you said about being inclined to have her pay her own way, that you might look negatively on this as bribery; well, it is. But she is so new to piano that she does not yet realize the pleasure and benefits of learning it for its own sake, so a little reward system is, in my view, a kid-friendly way to get her to practice and over time she will learn the reward of the music itself. Don't expect her to "get" that idea this early.
Get the teacher on board first. Talk to the teacher without your child around and say that your daughter is getting bored and wants to quit, and describe your practice reward system; ask the teacher how many minutes of practice daily is a minimum to go for, and get the teacher to bring up the idea of the reward chart, if your daughter likes and respects the teacher. Hearing this from the teacher, not you, might make your daughter likelier to try this.
I would tell your child too that she is going to stick with piano until at least a certain point. Again, ask the teacher. There is a kind of breakthrough point with music where a child really clicks with it (or truly does not click) and she needs to get there, and that takes time. The idea, mentioned by another poster, that piano be "seasonal" does not work for any instrument and will only frustrate your daughter much, much more as she has to relearn things!
Also, step back from the emotion of it and remember that she is not you. You had a stick-with-it personality as a kid. She may not, but that does not mean she never will stick with anything; don't let it worry you so much. She also may not have "found her thing" just yet. It's actually OK if kids do not do one or two things super-intensively at a very young age; it's kind of scary to see how kids now are extremely focused on a single activity or sport so young that they never, ever sample or try anything new or different. At least she is willing to try new things!
One other thought. Play piano music around the house and in the car, classical but also ragtime, modern, pop, whatever. Take her to see a performance. Be clear that you're not sayiing "I want you to play like this now" but you're saying, "This can be fun." And be sure the teacher is giving your daughter a variety of interesting pieces. My daughter likes to fool around with fun pieces as a diversion from the classical pieces and that helps her get in more practice time.
I recommend offering her some type of incentive for finishing out a certain term. Perhaps have her stick with it through the fall, and if she does, and practices without being forced to, she can get a special reward. Maybe if she sticks with it long enough she'll come to love it.
Just a thought. My 5 yr old is the same way with soccer, t-ball, and now karate :(
You said something several things that I think you need to rethink. Your daughter is 8 and she is not the one signing up and dropping out of these things....you are enabling her. Just say NO.
Good luck,
DH
Children who play music do better in math. I have professional musician friends and they say because music is math. I don't get it --- but then I never learned to play an instrument and I'm terrible at math.
Do you know any professional musicians? Maybe if she could talk to someone who plays for a living and is really good she will understand that this person started the same way she did and learned to play well because he(she) worked at. One of my friends who has a Master's in classical guitar said he was self taught until he started college and would practice until his fingers bled--- sometimes up to 8 hours a day.
