If your 7yo is learning to play the piano...

[SatsumaFan]

How often do they practice at home? My 7.5yo has been learning since Feb, and he used to practice for a few mins a day at home. His interest has started to wane recently, so it's a real slog trying to get him to do any practice/playing. He says he still loves his lesson (30mins once a week).

I encourage him to do 10mins a day - is that unrealistic? Wondering whether to continue with the lessons after Christmas...

My son is the same. Loved the lessons but can’t be arsed to practice. I just tell him 5-10 mins of no television and stick to it. Seems to work.

I started learning at 6yo and practiced every day. I enjoyed it, the only thing I found boring was practising scales and arpeggios for exams.
I stopped regularly playing as an older teen after I'd gotten to grade 5. Thinking of buying a piano and taking it up again.

@needsahouseboy good to know I'm not alone! Even when we turn all screens off he'd rather do something else. We've threatened to cancel his lessons and he pleads with us not to. Will tell him just 5 mins a day now then, see if that helps. I just wish he was as eager as at the start, but know it's natural to lose enthusiasm once the novelty has worn off.

kaytee87 you sound like dh - he got to grade 5 as a teen and gave up. He loves playing with ds (and takes over quite a bit!). Ds hasn't done any grades or exams yet but heard practicing for them is very dull.

He sounds very similar to mine. We have had to pause them for a few months due to changing jobs and building works in home.
I threatened to cancel them to sndhe begged me not to. I’ve decided not to do gradings unless he asks

needsahouseboy I don't think having the summer holidays off helped. He's been back once a week since the start of Sept now tho so was hoping he'd get back into it. I think I might have to resort to bribery!

You need to be with him while he practises, encouraging and taking an interest. Unless a child is very keen they need supervision, not just saying, “Go and do your practice”

I include it as part of homework so he doesn't know it isn't compulsory. He only does a couple of minutes though, but I think it's better than nothing.

IIRC my DD used to practise everyday at that age, but she liked practising. We also had a few books of 'fun' stuff for her to tinker around with outside of her set pieces she was learning.

She never liked doing exams much - because you have to do the same stuff for ages, - her teacher agreed that exams were actually holding her back, so she just did grade 2 and grade 8 and didn;t bother with the others. It let her develop her interests and find out what kind of music she really wanted to play.

I'd ask his teacher how much she/he expects him to do and try to encourage him to do that and to make his practice focused (so he cncentrates on the bits he finds tricky and doesn;t just play everything through from start to finish - playing the same bits well and the same bits wrong)