About a year and a half ago 10 YO DD1 started weekly lessons to learn to play an instrument for the local brass band.
They give you the instrument and you pay twenty odd quid for the insurance.
She started off on the euphonium and about 9/10 months ago went onto the trombone.
I reckon she's doing really well, reading music and that, the bloke she has lessons with thinks the same and she should be doing her grade 1 in the next couple of months.
The problem is she doesn't practice at home, we've 'encouraged' her to do it and said if her teacher thinks she's good when she doesn't practice just think how well she'd play with a bit each/every other night. She enjoys it when she's at her lesson, but maybe sees practicing as a chore but doesn't want to give in/up.
I'd be interested to know whether other posters think she's not practicing because she's a 10 YO and has better things to do, or whether the lessons are on to a road to nowhere because if she was into it she'd want to practice?
This came up a few months ago and we gave her a certain amount of time to show us she could practice before we said it might be a good idea to let it go and someone else's child have a go. She didn't practice.
It's come up again because we're going through a skint phase and with the £20 we pay for insurance, plus the time DH loses in pay when he has to leave early from work to get her to her lesson, could help out quite a lot.
I'm stalling because I want her to have the benefit of being able to read music/play instrument/play in band, so is it worth it scraping the cash for such a long term benefit? How have other peoples DCs music lessons panned out?
I did think last night that perhaps I could offer her an alternative activity like swimming/dancing that's not so 'expensive'? She has her own trombone as well, so she could keep it up and maybe start lessons at some time in the future, she's moving to a new school as she'll be in Yr 7 next year, so perhaps they'll have lessons.
I just keep going round and round in circles because I don't want to do wrong by her, what do you think?
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AIBU?
Should I force DD to give up her trombone lessons?
58 replies
AgentZigzag · 29/07/2011 15:01
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