DS doesn’t practice piano but refuses to quit

[HeadoverheelsPP]

Totall at my wits’ end so thought I’d ask for some advice.
DS, aged 8, has been learning piano for a couple of years but with little improvement. The practice is increasingly becoming a daily fight which is exhausting me together with work, commute, housework and so on.
When he has lessons, he is interested and feels good/motivated afterwards. Not for long though.
The teacher writes very detailed notes about what and how to practice at home but he doesn’t read or follow. I can make him read but the practice will then return to his own random version. Eg ignore the instruction of playing separately before both hands together. He will just play both together with lousy work on each hand.
It has come to a point that enough is enough for me and I want to message his teacher to stop the lessons. The problem is he doesn’t want to quit.
What would you do or have you done in similar situation?

Dd had been doing music for years by age 8 and got interested in other things/ disheartened by slow progress. Her fabulous teacher agreed to let her come to lessons with an understanding that she did not have to practise. Fast forward three years and dd was organising her own practice, completing her hundred days charts, planning for exams. So glad we hung in there, she has so much fun at orchestra and relaxing at home with two other instruments she's picked up.

It's good that he is practising at all. Ds is 10 now & about 2+ years on clarinet. I always have to remind him to practice & for the first year it was constant excuses.

I'd make him agree to the minimum structured practice you feel suitable & let him do any extra random practice whatever way he wants.

Ds has to do just 10mins a day & rarely on weekends

Also, I'm currently writing routines for Alexa to announce every day reminders to be ready or practice etc to save my sanity of constant nagging!

I would say to him that he has a few options

1. stops but could potentially restart in the future
2. carries on with lessons but only if he agrees to practice properly (however will probably require a degree of supervision to make sure he is following the instructions)
3. carries on with lessons which HE pays for if he doesn't want to practice. Obviously no child that age has that kind of money so this would have to be worded as "if you want to carry on with lessons but not practice then it has to come out of birthday/Christmas presents/money"

Maybe consider reducing the volume of practice for a while? Get the teacher to pare back the amount of work set. Instead of saying practise both hands separately then both together, maybe just set practising right hand one week, left hand the next week, both together the 3rd week. Then your son just has one objective to fulfil rather than multiple ones. Agree with your son that he only has to do 5 or 10 mins a day in the new regime, but it absolutely has to be done every day. Schedule it and link it to something else eg straight after tea (we find mornings work well). But the deal is, if he still can't stick to the new, pared down regime then he has to stop because it's not value for money. At 8 a tick chart and prize might help but only alongside other changes.

My son's determined to do his exam this term but finding it really difficult to practice (he's autistic and very anxious) so I do feel your pain! I would be happy for him not to do the exam but he is determined.

Mummyeyes your approach sounds very kind, your DD's very lucky. I don't think we could justify paying for 3 years of private lessons without any practice or intention to do so.

Yes we make it a condition, if they want music lessons they practise. Sounds like you've got stuck in a rut of grumbling so maybe time for a sit down serious talk, "now you're bigger, if you want to keep having lessons we do expect some good practice to happen in between ..." Carrot too in that with proper practice he'll get on to more fun pieces quicker.

To make it happen without grumbling: a regular slot helps, ours usually practise after tea. And we have practice as a prerequisite for other things like screen time, bedtime stories.

I agree with a PP that you may need to sit in and direct practice, at least for a small amount every day. Practising well is a skill to learn and 8 is still quite little. My DD is nearly 8 and quite serious about her music but still needs and wants me to sit in more often than not.

DS is 10 and sounds more like yours in nature, he absolutely hates me sitting in and usually ends up shouting at me - he simply can't believe there's anything wrong with his playing and takes it as a personal insult if I suggest something needs improvement.

Oops didn't mean to hit post. I was going to say with DS what I do is insist on sitting in about once a month and then threaten to do it again if I don't hear some reasonable practice going on. We don't ask a lot. Just some playing every day, plus make at least one thing better.

Thanks everyone for the very helpful thoughts. I will respond properly soon. Totally overwhelmed at the moment with work and everything, which probably doesn’t make it easy to be calm and patient! x

If he's practising without you nagging him to do so I think that's half the battle. If you have to nag a child to practise then theres little point in taking lessons as it sucks all the joy out of playing. I'd leave him be even though he's doing his own thing. If he stops practising altogether then reassess the situation.

If you have to nag a child to practise then theres little point in taking lessons as it sucks all the joy out of playing.

I think it depends on the degree of nagging. If they're determined not to give up they must be getting something out of it. They'll let us know if they don't want to have lessons any more, it's not compulsory. My DS takes obvious joy out of playing ensembles, and playing through his music at home come to that. He is still too short sighted to get that he will have more fun if he puts the odd 10 minutes into being able to play the notes right before he defaults to hacking through. He'll learn. It's something I'm happy to support, and appreciate that my parents supported me in.

Come to that I'm an enthusiastic adult amateur, and I'm still rubbish at practising without a nudge or a looming performance. Sometimes it's just inertia at having to stop another activity and start practice. If I let DS only do things that don't require nagging, he'd be in bed on his tablet all day.

One idea. Could you suggest matching minutes practiced on piano=screen/iPad time? I know one parent who tells the child, 30 minutes spent reading = 30 mins screen time. I realise that requires supervision so may not work for you.

Or find music that he wants to play more readily. My ds hates classical but loves film music and will play John Williams and Hans Zimmer quite happily. Still a chore to practise but once they get the melody they start to really enjoy it. So we have made a pact I won’t suggest Mozart if he finds music he wants to play. There is a website called musicnotes that has lots of popular music.

Apologies if you know this and have tried this before.

My ds complains and says he wants to give up because of the practise but because he is quite good and secretly does like it we have told him he should carry on. But getting him to do it daily and effectively is not easy. But we had one teacher who said “no one wants to put the time in to practise really”

It is a very common problem, well done for trying to make him do it. I hear stories from teachers that parents just expect their kids to magically play an instrument without practising every day or always asking when they can start the next grade without making their kids do the work required. It seems that the teachers are music miracle makers that babysit their kids once a week.

I used to teach piano before becoming a mum, when this happened I found that my teaching methods needed to change from the more traditional (learning to read music, Abram exams and classical) to less traditional (blues, improvisation, chords and composing etc and no exams) even if only for a term to get the pupil interested again and practising and doing their own thing at home, then slowly reintroduce reading music etc.

Abram should be Abrsm

We had exactly that! She would say that she wanted to carry on but unless I told her to practise, she wouldn't. She barely progressed , she didn't do the work at home but everytime we said we were going to cancel, she said no! One half term , we just cancelled it. She did grumble, but after a while she stopped. If he's not doing, put your foot down.

I'd stop the lessons or tell him if he isn't going to practice you will, and stick to your word. A good lesson for him to learn.
Music is hard work, if it's easy you aren't getting any better.

“no one wants to put the time in to practise really”

I'd have given this teacher their marching orders.
If they don't want to practice, if you have to constantly remind them, if they can put it down, they don't want to do it.
Many parents carry on, so do many children, but it's for the parents not the child.