My son wanted to quit at 11 because wearing a scoliosis brace for three years made it more difficult and uncomfortable for him to play. He had been taking lessons since he was five. Before the brace he would practice several times a week. I didn't want him to quit, so we made some changes. I told the piano teacher that his pain issues made everything more difficult and that all of his other learning had to take priority. I told her that he might not practice at all but I didn't want him to forget what he had learned. We decided to let him pick out songs to work on and he found some really nice songs from Japanese anime. Some of them were more challenging than what he had worked on before but since he wanted to learn them he did better than he had before. He was more focused. The pain did not seem to distract him as much and he made progress each week at the piano lesson even though he did not practice during the week because he could not take off the brace like he did sometimes at the lesson. It surprised me, that he could remember a lot of what he had learned the week before even without practice, even though he still had some sensory issues and pain--I guess this is an example of the power of music.
