“Why won’t my child practise? How do I get them to practise more?”
These are the questions so often uttered by exasperated parents, reluctantly taking a significant financial hit each week to send their oblivious, ‘so-capable-but-won’t-apply-themselves’ kid to piano lessons.
Before I address these questions, I want to acknowledge some sobering realities. Excuse my candour - I hope the reader finds it reassuring and not depressing. The path forward is through these realities, not around them.
Firstly, a child who practises their instrument diligently without parental involvement is the exception, not the norm. It is normal for a child to prefer activities with more instant gratification than the slow, arduous process of mastering a musical instrument. There is nothing wrong with your child if they fall into the unenthusiastic majority when it comes to piano practice.
As a piano teacher, I consider it my primary job to ensure that the student wants to return each week, regardless of how their progress compares to other students. This brings me to my next point.
You can’t get better at piano if you quit piano. This is obvious, but all too often, the attempted remedies for a lack of practice push the child (or their frustrated parents) to quit rather than apply themselves. The cure becomes worse than the disease.
Another thing to consider is that zero practice may be better than poor quality practice. As I articulated in another blog, zero practice is better than bad quality practice (which I call “anti-practice”). With zero practice, progress will be very slow (what can be achieved in each lesson minus what is forgotten in between lessons). With “anti-practice” the student will likely regress or impede their progress.
All this is to make two broad points. It is not easy to guide a child to practise effectively. It is very easy to push a child to practise poorly, thus impeding progress, or quit, thus halting progress altogether.
That is why we as parents and teachers need to approach our role as motivators and supervisors with great awareness and know-how. Hopefully, the ideas articulated below will give you the confidence and inspiration to get your kid reaching their true potential (or at least showing enough progress that you stop questioning whether their piano lessons are worth the money!).
TASK ONE: Identify the Barriers
Before you commence a new practice regime, it’s a good idea to make sure that you’ve resolved or removed any obvious barriers. Usually, kids are not practising for one or a combination of the following reasons.
- (Most common reason). It just doesn’t occur to them. The day goes by and all of a sudden it’s bedtime and it’s another day that they forgot to practise.
- (Second most common reason). There is something else they’d rather be doing.
- They are under-challenged. They get bored very quickly at the instrument because they are not oriented towards suitably challenging tasks.
- They are over-challenged, which creates a sense of overwhelm and perhaps triggers unpleasant feelings of inadequacy
- They have some trauma associated with the instrument (perhaps a scary teacher or a performance that didn’t go well).
- Practising is frustrating because they get distracted by siblings, or they are embarrassed that their family is listening to them.
Let’s go through these one-by-one.
If your child is simply forgetting to practise, you need to work with them to schedule it into their daily rhythm. It really helps to schedule practice directly before or after another task that happens every day without fail, such as teeth brushing, dinner time, or arriving home from school. Eventually, it will probably become a habit and you will not need to remind them.
If there is something else your child would rather be doing, you could try offering the more alluring activity as a reward for doing their practice. “First piano practice, then video games”. More on rewards below. You could also talk to your kid about what it is about the other activity that is more appealing, and see if you can devise incentives that meet that need/desire.
If your child is bored or under-challenged in their practice, perhaps check that they are really following their teacher’s instructions. If necessary, ask the teacher to provide more challenging practice tasks or to be more specific about what they expect the child to do in between lessons. It may help to sit in and pay attention yourself, so you are not relying on your child's memory and/or creative interpretation of instructions.
If your child is over-challenged, you need to break big tasks down into manageable chunks. You can certainly ask your teacher to help with this. Examples include:
- Practicing fragments (even half a bar) instead of whole phrases or pieces.
- Practicing separate hands
- Practicing the rhythm by clapping or tapping (instead of needing to get notes and rhythm correct at the same time)
- Focussing on getting the notes correct before attending to rhythm.
If your child is tired when they go to practise, perhaps reconsider what time of day you are asking them to sit at the instrument. It is probably better to do 5 minutes in the morning with a fresh brain than 30 minutes at night with a tired, checked-out brain.
If your child has some trauma or negative association with piano, you may need to talk about it and make sure that they feel understood and safe. For example, they may be terrified of exams or performances, in which case you could reassure them that they don’t need to participate in exams and performances unless they want to. They can show their progress in other ways. If their negative association has anything to do with their teacher, this may be a good reason to find a new teacher.
Many children get frustrated and/or distracted by siblings who ambush them or are noisy in the background while they practise. Others are embarrassed to play when others are listening. Younger children may not even really know their own feelings in this way. However, if you suspect that your child needs privacy to feel comfortable and focus while playing the piano, you could invest in headphones (if you are using a keyboard), move the piano to a different room, or choose a time of day when most of the family is out of the house or in a different room.
TASK TWO: Start with Rewards and/or Competition as Incentives
As much as I want my students to practise for the ‘right reasons’ (fulfillment, self-development, self-mastery etc), I know that many students are simply not responsive to the incentives that us adults think are important. At least, not at first.
So what incentives work with kids? In my opinion, some combination of rewards and competition (with themselves, or even better, with you or a peer), tends to do the trick.
Rewards come in many shapes and sizes. Prizes, experiences, privileges etc are all useful tools in this regard. Competition can also be leveraged in many ways. In my experience, kids love competing with me for “points'' in exchange for completing certain piano tasks in a timely fashion. This usually involves me losing points and them gaining points when they play things correctly, and vice versa. (HINT: I make sure they win most of the time…deliberately giving them bonus points if needed…whatever it takes!). I use visual materials to reflect the point system. The most basic example is collecting stickers in a row. Other examples include joining dots to get to a finish line (pictured below), or drawing their favourite animal one part at a time, (hangman style).
Joining dots as a point system to get to the finish line before falling in the blue water (complete with green arrow boosts, just for fun)
At our studio, we combine both rewards and competition with our waiting room sticker wall, where all participating students earn a prize for collecting a certain number of stars and the student with the most stars gets an additional prize on top of that. Even I, who designed this system, was surprised by how much it boosted students’ practice each week.
our studio sticker wall
Think about some creative ways that you can use rewards and/or competition to motivate your child. This is not forever. Once your child is in the habit of practising, you may find that you no longer need to indulge in crafty bribery to get the results you want. I’ll elaborate on this more below.
My one caution is to avoid rewards which you think are excessive or deleterious (for example, if you are trying to minimise sugar, don’t offer it as a reward). Assume you will be offering rewards for a very long time (though I hope you won’t need to), and be sure that you are happy to sustain the system indefinitely. Make it easy on yourself, rather than replacing one concern (“my kid doesn’t practise”), with another (“my kid has too much sugar”.)
TASK THREE: Allow Internal Motivation to Replace Rewards and Competition
In my experience, most humans (at any age), are very eager to be good at things. Progress is its own incentive to pursue further progress. Generally, when a kid truly feels that they are able to master something challenging by practising diligently, they will be motivated by their own progress to continue practising. The tricky thing is kickstarting the whole process, allowing them to see what is really possible with practice, which is why I recommend using rewards and competition to begin with. Be liberal with your praise and affirmation when your child accomplishes anything noticeable on the piano. In time, you may find out that the feeling of accomplishment is enough to spur them on to continue practising. If not, don’t despair! If you’ve chosen your strategies mindfully, there’s no harm in using rewards and competition indefinitely.
Wishing you patience and gratification! Thanks for reading today's blog post.