As a fellow music parent, I've been following the recent threads on piano practice battles, and the recent article on the differences between Asian and Western views of parenting. It's interesting to note how often the battles between parents and children are played out during music practice and it occurred to me that there is a fairly simple reason why this occurs. Perhaps this will shed some light on the issue, especially for those parents whose children do not play and instrument, and are probably wondering why the rest of us put ourselves through it!
One of the biggest differences between the serious student athlete and the serious student musician is the amount of time that the student spends under the watchful eye of a teacher or coach. For an athlete, a large proportion of their time spent practicing is in the presence of their coach. For music students, it is quite the opposite. The music student sees their teacher for a relatively small amount of time, maybe an hour or two each week. The vast majority of their practice time is at home. Especially for younger kids, it takes a lot of discipline to be able to manage and effectively utilize all of that practice time. In addition, when problems crop up during practice (as they inevitably do) the student does not have their teacher there to help them work through it. This leaves the parents (and many of us are not musicians ourselves) to try to help the child through the difficult spots. I know that my DD gets downright bellicose when she is having trouble with something during practice. In her lessons, she is much calmer (aren't all kids different with teachers than they are with parents?). It would be SO much easier for her teacher to get her over the obstacle, but the reality is that she sees him only once a week. The rest of the time, she is stuck with me. Is it any wonder that music practice is the scene for so much child-parent conflict?
And for many GT kids, their instrument is one of the only things that actually challenges them and requires serious effort. That's why so many of us parents are eager for our children to continue with their music.
Thoughts?
