The Practicing Battle: "How do I get my kid to practice?"
The first year of piano lessons usually starts out great. Students are excited to practice. And then, after a few weeks, it gets old. I hear this often from parents of students. It’s a struggle to get them to practice.
I can do my part as a teacher to encourage them at lessons that they will succeed and advance at a much faster pace if they practice at home. But I know from personal experience with my own kids that getting them to actually sit down at the piano and play through their assignments each day can be a challenge.
So, here are some suggestions I’ve collected from other parents and teachers that I hope will be helpful.
1. Make it a routine. Decide on a time when your child will practice every day. Perhaps right after school, or right after dinner. Or before school, as part of their morning routine. Or even as part of the bedtime routine. If it happens every day at the same time, like brushing your teeth, it will become a habit.
2. Sign their practice sheet every time they practice. This is a tiny reward, but even your acknowledgement and a pat on the back can go a long way to encourage your child. Don’t wait until the end of the week to try to remember which days they practiced. As soon as they have finished playing through their assignments, sign or initial their practice record with a smile or a “good job.” We all need the extra confidence boost.
3. The goal of each practice session should be clear. I go over this at lessons, but to make sure we are all on the same page, your child should play through each of their assigned scales and songs 5 times a day. It doesn’t have to be perfect. They will probably make lots of mistakes. Trust that it will get better every day. Sometimes I assign a group of scales, and I try to note on their assignment sheet that they can play through each scale once a day instead of 5 times. For younger students, the bead counter (pictured below) should help them keep track of these 5 times. (If you don’t have a bead counter, five pennies will do. Place them on one side of the piano and move a penny to the other side each time you play through the song.) So, practicing may take only 5 or 10 minutes the first year, gradually increasing as the student progresses.
4. Be available. If they ask you to help them count, by all means, sit with them and listen. Some kids just want you to be nearby. Encourage them when you hear improvement. Don’t correct all of their mistakes; allow them to self-correct as much as possible. This promotes the learning process and self-discipline. Think of yourself as their cheerleader – not their coach.
5. If need be, you could make a reward contingent on practicing. For example, no bedtime story until they have practiced. Or no dessert until after they have practiced.
6. One of my student families required their children to help pay for the piano lesson if they had not practiced. I believe they divided the cost of the lesson by the 5 days of practice expected. So if the lesson cost $20, and the student only practiced 4 days, they had to chip in $4. If they only practiced 3 days that week, the student chipped in $8, and so on.
7. Agree to hold each other accountable. Perhaps there is a habit that your child could help you to remember to do. They practice while you do your exercises, for example.
Encouragement, perseverance, and accountability are all important. Here’s to a happy and healthy practicing routine!
Suzanne Rood is a piano teacher and author of A LIMP OF FAITH (Credo House Publishers, 2019), her story of daily life with CMT, a hereditary neuropathy that challenges her walking, her music, and her faith. Here’s a link to purchase the book on Amazon.