Hi,

First of all however many minutes a day your child should practice something is a pretty personal decision. What is or isn't commonly required of children to learn to do at age 8 is just culturally determined and it changes over time. There are an awful lot of parents out there dragging their reluctant kids to soccer, to Kumon, or to religious study, all in the name of child betterment. It's just in the eye of the beholder which activities have merit and how many minutes or hours per day children should engage in them. If you have a deep personal commitment to your child playing the piano well or for a certain amount of time then that's just how it is and the question is how to make that the least emotionally painful for the child.

I thought I would add my personal piano experience from age 8: My mother had a few years of piano as a child but gave it up and later regretted it. She loves to play, she took up piano again as an adult but to her dismay simply was not able to proceed at the same pace. She was determined I would not make the "mistake" of quitting. I showed promise. She required I take lessons as a child. She told me over and over I would regret it as an adult if I stopped. She tried to get me to practice with decreasing success as I liked it less and less. I progressed (probably not very fast but not slow) on only a few minutes of practicing a day. At the age of 8 I made a stand that I hated it.

She wanted me to continue so much that she agreed to trade lessons in anything I wanted: if I would continue piano for one further year then if I still wanted to I could quit, but either way I would then get to take the type of lessons I wanted for one year. At least that is how I remember the arrangement. She regarded the lessons I wanted as frivolous so wasn't about to offer them otherwise. I think she felt that if I could just gain a little more maturity I would see the value in it, felt that in a year I'd naturally just want to continue.

The end result: I continued for another year, practicing an average of about 10 minutes daily (I had to practice 5 and I'd practice 40 occasional days when doing fun things) and making enough progress to keep my teacher happy. The practice did not come without my mom nagging. I quit the day the year ended (much to my mom's surprise as I hadn't mentioned it for the year and she had forgotten when it would be up). And then I got the joy of being rewarded for something I had really earned. Not without some problems as it turned out to be a little more expensive than piano and my parents couldn't afford a year of it initially (at least they said that) -- I got around 8 weeks of lessons paid for by them initially then a couple years later when they could better afford it I got an additional whole year. In later years I got a part time job to pay for it.

I'm so glad she let me quit piano at the end of that year. It was a constant source of unhappiness between the two of us.

Polly