How to keep my son interested in lessons

My son is 12 and has been taking lessons for a couple of years. We have a busy schedule and he and I alternate lesson weeks with the same teacher. (We each have a lesson every other week)

I remind him once in a while to practice, but I refuse to ride him about it. I purposely keep my reminders light and non-specific, such as "Remember it's your week for guitar lesson. Better get some practice in," as opposed to telling him exactly when to practice and how long. It gives him responsibility and choice about managing his time. There are plenty of other chores I have to nag him about, and I don't need one more "job."

It was his idea to learn guitar, and I support him with equipment and lessons, but it has to be his choice to stick with it. He knows he can stop lessons anytime he chooses (although, secretly, it would break my heart).

Some times he only practices once between lessons, but he really does progress, believe it or not. I don't know if it's because he's young and therefore sponge-like, or what. It takes me tons of practice to make any progress, so I'm envious.

Some people might think I'm wasting my money on lessons if he's not going to practice more, but IMO, any music education is an investment.

Guitar will probably not be Matt's career, rather a source of pleasure and creativity for him. Therefore, I'm not willing to turn it into a sore spot with any nagging of any kind. Last night he got out his Hamer and played, then switched and played my Strat for a while. He's working on the Five for Fighting song "Fifteen" right now.

Margaret

I have a 12 year old that is taking bass lessons (Three weeks now) and an 8 year old that has been play drums for 3 years, 2 of which were with lessons. For each, I do encourage them to practice and sometime I do ask them why I should be spending 120 a month on lessons if they dont want to practice what the teacher is giving them. But I dont ride them about it.

I do agree with what you were saying about the school. It seems that they give so much homework these days that there is no time for family or hobbies. No wonder kids want to zone out on video games. I am burned out on homework and its not even me doing it.

Your son needs to decide if he wants to play guitar or not. Probably on a daily basis. I wouldnt make it a "Either you play or you dont" kind of thing. Just gentle encouragement and support. Might be that he doesnt do "lessons" for now and just noodles.

Jim

I have a 12 year old that is taking bass lessons (Three weeks now) and an 8 year old that has been play drums for 3 years, 2 of which were with lessons. For each, I do encourage them to practice and sometime I do ask them why I should be spending 120 a month on lessons if they dont want to practice what the teacher is giving them. But I dont ride them about it.

Jim

Wow, you can have your own "house" band. That is great. Yeah I think I am going to back off on the practice requirement. If he stops making any progress, I can just stop the lessons. I don't want to be a practice enforcer. He can keep his guitar and if he decides to try again in the future he will still have it.

Geoo wrote: spending 120 a month on lessons

That is quite a monthly outlay, with two of them, and each presumably having weekly lessons.

I'm only putting out $45 a month for lessons, and that's for two of us since we alternate weeks. We just found that our schedules were too full to get enough practice in with only a week between lessons.

Margaret

Wow, you can have your own "house" band. That is great. Yeah I think I am going to back off on the practice requirement. If he stops making any progress, I can just stop the lessons. I don't want to be a practice enforcer. He can keep his guitar and if he decides to try again in the future he will still have it.

I would suggest to anyone, to play your instruments with your kids. It is sometimes frustrating. But it has over all been one of the most fullfilling things we three have done together.

Margaret - Tell me bout it. My actual cost is 180 for three cause I am taking lessons to. However, I am going to quit my lessons for now. I am enjoying "Blues You Can Use" alot and I want to focus on that for the time being.

Jim

Geoo just took the words out of my mouth, try getting involved with what he's learning if if you go over the lesson together. Or just play together it may give him more incentive to do it on his own.

But I wouldn't push him, if he chooses to quit oh well, he may do again at a later date. I know I took guitar lessons when I was about 12 for almost a year and I hated them. I hated the guitar I had, I hated the material I was being taught and I hated to sit in my room for a half hour or so a day and look out the window watching all my friends go play baseball or whatever while I had to practice. Thirty years later I tried again.

As parents you have to be careful of not making them do it because of YOU..they need to do it because they want to.

The kid is stretched too thin. He has no time to be a kid. But I really don't want him to stop playing guitar. He absolutely loves hockey, so quitting that is out of the question. Quitting school in not an option .

As a father of 4 -- my 2 cents for what it's worth:

You've identified the problem. You've identified the kid's passion. And you've identified what's stopping you from addressing the problem.

We don't get to pick what our children want to do. We do get the choice on how we support their dreams or interfere with them.

As a guitar teacher -- my additional 2 cents:

Kids who are stretched to thin to dedicate time to their instrument, and kids who really don't want to be playing but are there for their parents' are two of my biggest frustrations. As soon as I identify either of those, I lay down the law -- do it 'cause YOU want to, not mom and dad, and if you're going to do it, make time for it. Kids who can't do those two things, for whatever reason, I ask to stop taking lessons from me. It's not my job to take money for no return. It's my job to teach how to play the guitar. Kids who don't have the time or desire to do that are wasting my time as a teacher and their parents' money.

No teacher likes to deal with a student who doesn't have the time or inclination to learn, it's frustrating and limiting and it isn't why we teach. It's just as unfair to the teacher as it is to the student.

That said -- mimimum amounts of practice time vary from student to student. Kids who love their instrument adn think about it all the time, are noodling all the time, etc. can get by with 2 or 3 half hour sessions of "real" practice every week. Kids who don't really want to be learning, are stretched thin, and aren't getting enough sleep (necessary to promote learning!), usually need an hour a day or more to make the same kind of progress, but can get by with 3-4 1/2 hour sessions a week.

Kingpatzer your take is really interesting, my son is 12 and has taken lessons for 2 years.For well over a year he hasnt been practicing between lessons but still made good progress. We changed his teacher 3 months ago and he stopped progressing and never picks up his instrument inbetween lessons. Weve now decided to stop lessons as he wants to quit. We did all we could, bought decent gear, paid for 1 hours tuition a week and encouraged all we could.

Having a guitar in the house kind of inspired me to try and learn. I practice at least half an hour a day, never had a lesson iam kind of teaching myself and my progress is painfully slow but im doing it because i want to, and that is what its about.

As a kid I had a notebook wherein I had to keep a written record of all my piano practice time so my teacher could tsk, tsk at me every week. She wanted 30 minutes a day, but at that young age about 20 minutes was my attention span for that particular activity. I actually had a little wind-up clock on the piano to time my sessions. Couple times through each piece and the rest was just squirming on the bench, wanting to run off and play. :cry:

I also had a vocal music teacher in elementary school, whose favorite punishment for any misbehavior was to force the offender to sing a solo a cappella in front of the class. A surefire way to make kids detest music. As student council president in 6th grade, I circulated a petition to get her fired, with my name at the top. :shock: All that got me was a severe lecture by the principal in front of the entire class. :lol:

I've taught piano lessons off and on a few times over the years and, as a teacher, I was above all interested in fostering a love for and appreciation of music. The above memories are partly why I don't believe in a lot of rigidity or strict parental discipline in musical matters. For most children, music is going to be a hobby, not a career. Why make it painful when it should be joyful?

Margaret

Kingpatzer your take is really interesting, my son is 12 and has taken lessons for 2 years.For well over a year he hasnt been practicing between lessons but still made good progress. We changed his teacher 3 months ago and he stopped progressing and never picks up his instrument inbetween lessons. Weve now decided to stop lessons as he wants to quit. We did all we could, bought decent gear, paid for 1 hours tuition a week and encouraged all we could.

Having a guitar in the house kind of inspired me to try and learn. I practice at least half an hour a day, never had a lesson iam kind of teaching myself and my progress is painfully slow but im doing it because i want to, and that is what its about.

That's my story also (except my son is 15). He's WAYYY ahead of me, but it's fun (and humbling), trying to learn from him. My goal is to get good enough that we can play together before he goes off to college & such. I think I'll make it (probably me on rythm; him on lead). It's a nice ego boost for him knowing he can smoke me on the guitar. He can teach me, but often can't seem to resist showing off. That's cool with me; I vaguely remember what it's like to be 15.

Anything parents and teens can enjoy doing together is a very good thing.

My son is only 11 months old, but I can't wait for him to get old enought to Want to play. I hope he enjoys the guitar, or music in general, as much as I do. If he doesn't, I'm not going to push him, it will be his choice, I just want to make sure he has the right tools at his disposal if he does Decide to play.

Interesting thread...

My son (11), one of my daughters (13) and I take guitar lessons. My son and I have been taking lessons for about one year and my daughter started eight months ago. I'm learning to read standard notation, but the kids did not seem interested (more on that later). We have a pretty cool instructor. He may not have been teaching them to read standard notation, but they have learning theory and don't even know it. :lol:

My son smokes me on learning cool riffs, but generally does not seem to learn entire songs. He can learn entire songs, but seems to get bored with that.

My daughter is into fingerpicking and I think she's giving our instructor a run for his money on this fingerpicking stuff. :lol:

I don't push the practice thing much. I do ask that they practice "something" for 15 minutes a day, but I don't push it. As others have noted, the kids just seem to soak this stuff up.

I tend to practice 30 - 60 minutes a day. I'm one of those organized types that keeps a log of what he's learning, metronome settings, etc... It allows me to see progress. I am learning to read standard notation. I like learning songs and am getting to a point now where I can pick out chords and riffs on my own.

As to jamming together, I can't say we do much of that. Earlier this year, my son and I did learn Warning by Green Day (and played at a show) and we are now learning This Boy by Franz Ferdinand (it is still a bit rough, but sounds really cool!).

So back to the standard notation thing. A cool thing that happened recently: My daughter is in 8th grade and tried out for jazz band at her Jr. High. I was pretty proud that she gave it a try after only having taken guitar lessons for 6 months. She did not get into the band, but learned that she needed to learn to read some standard notation. My son is in 6th grade and when he heard about jazz band from his sister, he e-mailed the instructor and learned that he needed to be able to read some standard notation. So... now the kids are learning standard notation, I'm practicing with them and helping them out a bit with it. I may not be jamming with them, but I do get to hang out with them and help them learn a new skill.

Pretty cool!

I happen to be going through much the same thing right now with my 8-year-old. Here's our situation: AfterI got my guitar in July, I heard noise from all three of my boys(9,8, and 5) about getting one of their own, and I started scouting out for lessons. When our local YMCA started an adult beginner's class once a week in September, running for ten weeks, I signed up-no extra charge, bc we are already members. My 8-year-old tagged along with me on the first or second week, and he seemed really interested. So we got him a 1/2 size "Little Lyon" by Washburn at Target for $30- the most I'd spend on an experiment-and he started going to class with me. He learned E, A, and D and seemed really into it, and we'd "jam" together sometimes. Now I manage to get about half an hour to an hour each day to practice, so I'm coming along. But my son has not been practicing at all,and the tme I have to play is early-before he's up-or late-after bedtime-so playing together doesn't really work. I don't mind,because I don't want to force him if he doesn't love it, and his passions lie elsewhere (Legos, Yu-Gi-Oh, sci-fi, and his Karate class). The problem I have is that when he is in class, he is bored and disruptive because he hasn't practiced and doesn't know what's going on. This in turn distracts me, and probably others,who are probably too nice to say anything,and want to be supportive and encouraging. So I know what you're going through, to a degree anyway. It's hard to tell them that what they believe isn't right, though, and I need to tell my son that he doesn't really LOVE playing guitar,or he'd actually do it.
Sorry for the hijacking- thanks for the chance to vent. My wife is taking her astronomy quiz online right now,so typing is the loudest noise I can make!

indiana_jonesin

I have no problem with you joining in on the post. I think the problem is I am really ejoying lessons and practicing and get dissapointed when he isn't as focused or enthusiastic about the guitar. This is more my problem than his. I shouldn't expect an 11 year old to be as focused on practicing as I am. He has less free time than I do (and I don't have much).