WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD DOESN’T WANT TO PRACTICE

It can feel nearly impossible to get your child to practice the piano when they don’t want to. I remember when I first started making my daughter take piano lessons. If I had heard

“Dad, I’m bored”

“Why do I have to practice?”

“I don’t wanna go to lessons”

So over the course of a year, I started getting creative and coming up with new ways to motivate my daughter to practice the piano and avoid a meltdown. It wasn’t easy, but I decided to share some of the best ways to get your child to practice piano when they don’t want to.

1/Develop A Reward System:

Some might say bribery equals bad parenting, but I strongly disagree. Rewarding positive behaviors encourages future positive behaviors. If you truly think about it, we’re all being rewarded for good behaviors. Your job pays you money, you get a good grade for studying, etc.

So I encourage you to sit down with your child and come up with a list of small piano related goals. It could be practicing 15 minutes every day, to learning a new song and playing it for you by a certain date. Once you’ve developed these goals, write them down and display them publicly as a way to keep your child motivated.

In my experience, it’s easiest and most effective to come up with a list of goals every two weeks. I kept my daughter’s goals on the fridge so she and I could easily look at them. To jazz it up, I bought some stickers and let her add a sticker by each goal she had completed. However, you can use different rewards like extra play-time before bed or a new toy.

The most important part of this method is to check on your child’s progress frequently. If your child knows it’s a high priority for you, it will also become a high priority for him or her.

2/ Use Technology

In this day and age, if you’re not using technology as a parenting aid, you’re lying to yourself or missing out.

My daughter loves her iPad. If she even so much as sees the iPad, look out, she’s coming for you with tenacity. I have found that the best way to keep her engaged in what she’s learning is to use the iPad to teach her songs. I just set the iPad against the piano’s music rack and let her follow along to instructional videos. It’s fun, easy and she thinks she’s getting a special treat

3/ Let Your Child Play Fun Songs:

Before you sign your son or daughter up for piano lessons, I encourage you to ask the instructor what course books they’ll be using. Then drive to the nearest music store and check out what songs are in those books

If they’re boring beginner songs, request a new coursebook or instructor. No matter how young or new your child is to piano, your instructor should still be teaching him or her songs they want to play.

4/Vary Their Piano Playing Routine

Even as an adult, I still get bored with following the same old routine day in and day out. So of course your child is going to grow tired of practicing piano the same way after awhile.

Mix things up by having them practice at different times of the day. It’s pretty silly, but I sometimes wake my daughter up fifteen minutes earlier than usual and have a practicing “speed session” before school. She didn’t get very much practicing in, but it was so fun to rush around and it kept her laughing and having fun playing the piano

You want to vary HOW your child practices the piano. While it took some creativity, I came up with different fun “challenges” for my daughter and I’ll share them with you now

a) Practice the piano together, have your child teach you a song.

b) Host a “mini recital” where your child shows something they’ve learned to you and a few friends the next time they come over

c) Create an original song with your child and have them play easy notes to accompany the song while you sing along

While these challenges are a little goofy, they also helped me create some amazing memories with my child .