Should I Make My Child Practice Piano?

I'll never forget it. I was standing by the church door with our handbell director and several fellow handbell ringers, thanking people for coming to our concert as they left the building. One of them stopped to express appreciation over the piano solo I'd opened the concert with. I told her, as I try to, that I had a great mom who had really helped me out the first few years of piano.

   After the lady left, the ringer standing with me -- a gifted pianist himself -- smiled and said to me, "Yeah, now I'm so glad for all those years my mom made me practice."

   I chuckled. Clearly our 'recipes for success' had the same ingredient . . . the 'tough' moms who simply wouldn't let us quit.

   As parents, of course you want your children to enjoy music. You didn't send them to piano lessons (or maybe aren't considering sending them to piano lessons, if that's still in your future plans) to give them one more thing to complain about. Guess what? I want them to enjoy music too!

   I think my opinion is pretty obvious: I'm a piano teacher today (and I love it, and hope you all know that!) because Mom didn't let me quit piano in my second, third, or ninth year.

   You're all busy parents, I know, so I won't keep you long today. But stay tuned, because in a couple of weeks I'll share with you a link to how you can be a star piano parent.

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