I remember when I was a child and I got my first guitar for Christmas. Earlier that year I had been staying over at a friend’s house and played his guitar. After that, I was hooked. I begged my parents for a guitar. It was all I wanted that year for Christmas. And I got my wish.
Although I did enjoy playing guitar, I lacked the self-discipline to practice regularly as a child. I would always tell myself I was going to practice for 20 minutes to 30 minutes a day. After 5 minutes, I would just be staring at the clock, bored, waiting to be done.
Motivating your child to practice can be extremely challenging. Regular practice is extremely important but often parents and teachers use ineffective methods of attempting to motivate kids to practice. One example of this is the “30 Minutes a day” technique that commonly recommended by music teachers. This kind of method isn’t very effective for all children. For some kids, like myself, it promotes boredom and clock watching.
A Better Method of Practice
A better method is to focus on musical goals. For example, instead of focusing on the amount of time spent practicing, focus on an achievable goal. Like playing a piece of music several times without any mistake. You can even break it. For example, if they play the first half of a piece of music without any mistakes, the next day is to play the second half of music.
This kind of method is effective for several reasons. The first reason is that it promotes focus. Instead of focusing on the clock and how much time is left of practice, children are more likely to be focused on playing the music correctly, or accomplishing the daily goal. The second reason this method is effective is that this will make the child feel more accomplished. Instead of practicing for a set amount of time each day, they are actually accomplishing things, which leads to more self-esteem and motivation to continue practicing.
How to Implement
To come up with these daily goals there are several things you can do. You can break up a piece of music so that every day the child advanced in their ability to play it. You can also incorporate playing scales and other technique based practicing. The key is to make the daily goals moderately challenging but fun. If you notice your child is getting frustrated you may have to adjust the goal and make it somewhat easier. Practicing should be enjoyable.If you need more ideas on how to make practicing fun for your child, check out this excellent resource from NPR on getting kids to practice music.