Maintaining Motivation to Practice
Here’s a genius parent idea I learned from a church friend who was ahead of me with family experiences and raised 5 boys to play the piano while playing baseball (so no, I can’t take the credit for this motivation idea).
Piano Practice to Play Baseball Pays Big Dividends for Life.
She knew the importance of music for them and they loved baseball. So, long story short, practicing piano was their ticket to getting their uniforms, all the equipment needed, and for the mom taxi to get them to their practices and games. They learned that all the running around mom did and money spent on their activities came with a price. Practicing piano was what they did for her (until they understood later the value) even though the direct benefit for baseball was acute eye/hand coordination. This was also a great way to teach her sons that things worth doing come with investment and not exactly what they might expect. Yes, being good at a sport means hard work in physical preparation. But adding music to the requirement not only added to their ball prep but gave them more skills than they could understand at that time. And, more importantly, it kept them from taking mom for granted.
Motivation Comes in Different Shapes and Sizes
When my children were preschoolers, I would place M&M’s on each of the five right hand keys when my children first started. When they could play and sing the song three times, they could eat the M&M’s. I went for simple, more immediate rewards. How motivated were they? Very! Did I do that every day? No, only when needed and I used different motivators that were not always edible.
We lived on the water while my kids grew up and boating activities in the summer happened when everyone had their practice time in for the week. When they grew into middle school, it became “because you practice your music and your grades are good, we will get you a surfboard, tennis racket, horse trailer… whatever we were going to do for them anyway. They learned that things weren’t free just because they couldn’t earn the money for them. And if they couldn’t understand more than practicing a music instrument was their ticket to doing things they really loved, that was quite ok. This was a way that I didn’t have to force them to do what I knew was good for them and a way they felt a part of an agreement where they had control.
“I Wish My Parents Had Not Let Me Quit”
Applied music education (practicing an instrument) is so important to enhance life, but most kids don’t really get that until 20 years after they hassled their parents enough to quit. Through my years of providing my piano program to 2 counties of afterschool programs along with a private studio, I heard so many parents say, when enrolling their child, how they wished their parents had not let them quit. Hearing that over and over, I was determined for my kids to never lay the excuse for quitting on me and have been tremendously thankful that I learned how to motivate them from my friend’s example.
