My DS8 has been taking piano for several years. He's never loved it, but he has done well. I can't really say how good he is as I am not a musician, but he's been to a couple of Suzuki piano camps and I get the sense that he excels. Regardless of his level of achievement it's very obvious even to a layperson that he is talented in this area.

He practices anywhere from 20 minutes to 40 minutes a day (so not a lot), and this has been the case for years. However, lately his complaining about piano has reached a fever pitch.

I took last week off from work and thought we would have the opportunity to get back on track without being rushed. I don't think it helped. Yesterday afternoon he refused to slow down, got frustrated, and I got frustrated, and the last 10 minutes of the lesson was done with him in tears.

I know I sound pretty heartless, but prior to this I was trying things like giving him pennies that chould be exchanged for leftover Starbursts and I also tried limiting his practice sessions to 15 minutes, with the idea of improving his attitude and gradually working up to longer sessions. Both of these approaches worked, but only very short term. He became overly focused on the candy and the time left in the lessons. Rather than improving his attitude and making him less resistant, he just wanted MORE pennies/Starbursts and time concessions.

In the last two years I have gone back to work and we have moved away from the Suzuki approach due to my time limitations. He prefers to work from a list, rather than having me sit there. I prefer this too, which is why we moved away from the Suzuki. But the problem with that is then he plays too fast. ALso, he needs SOME help or he will just say "I don't know how to do it" if he is asked to practice something that was just introduced to him.

He has experienced some other changes recently. He started at a school for highly gifted children this year. They definitely don't push, but he's probably working harder than he did at his Montessori school. He also goes to before school care, whereas we used to have a f/t sitter. His dad and I recently separated, but he seems to be taking it well.

Here are my current thoughts and I welcome any advice:

1. In general, I am leaning towards a "lay down the law" approach. I tried to make it easier / fun and I feel like he took advantage (obviously not consciously but it didn't work). It seems as though when I give an inch he wants to take a mile and 100% consistency of expectations is a better approach with him

2. I have already told him that he will now ALWAYS go first practicing (his brother plays too). I feel like the complaining is worse if he has downtime to get it into his head that he is going to do something else. He accepted this rather well.

3. One thing that has backfired is if I say, "You need to slow down to play this, or no movie tonight." He gets overly anxious that he will lose the movie and melts down. It took me a while to realize this as he is not normally over anxious. I think both the carrot and the stick have proven to work poorly with him, but what do I do when he simply refuses to play at an appropriate rate? Just unemotionally turn on the metronome? The problem with this is then we have: Play too fast. Play second time too fast. Play with metronome. SO now he's played the piece THREE TIMES before getting to the point where he can get anything out of it and we can start working on something. Then he complains that his lesson is "too long". Maybe I just need to tough this out for a few days until he realizes the cause and effect?

4. I think he is working on too many pieces. He's currently working on 3 and none of them are near polished. He doesn't have enough time for this, and it doesn't leave any time for practicing his prior pieces. I plan to speak to his teacher about his. I think they are all for upcoming competitions/concerts, but it would have been better to use the same piece, multiple times. Or maybe introduce a couple of real easy pieces over the course of the year that don't need to get to the polished stage, just to encourage his note-reading skills.

5. I made CDs and ipod playlists of all the peices he and his brother are workign on. DS8 reads music poorly and I think switching away form the Suzuki method has been frustrating for him. I have tried to find group theory instruction, but there's just nothing available of any decent quality. Over the summer I will hve them take an extra lesson to wok towards mitigating this deficit. But I don't want to push him at this stage.

6. I think his half hour weekly lesson with his teacher is inadequate. He's 8 and his lesson is back to back with his bother's. SO even if he attitude was ideal, he's getting < 25 minutes of instruction. I don't think this is anywhere near enough time. Frequently he doesn't play all the pieces he is working on. I don't think it's practical to change this right now, so that brings me back to #4 - he needs to be working on only 1 or 2 pieces.

We are having a tough year and all I want to acomplish between now and September is for him to make *some* progress and for his attitutde to improve. I am not pushing towards any goals, I just want him to have a serious extra-curricular. If he quits now, I think it will be all over. Also, if I let him quit his brother will want to quit too. Given that he is 8, gets minimal homwork, and does minimal chores I really can't see myself as "pushing". But my son seems genuinely distressed.