A word on parent dynamics during the lesson

Greetings lovely families.  I need to talk for a minute about the parent / student / teacher triangle in lessons and practice.

For all students in grade 8 and above:
It is best if parents do not attend the lessons, but support their child's practice habits at home, and stay in touch with me if there are questions or issues.

For students in 5, 6, 7th grade: 
This is a time of transition between parentally guided lessons / practice and independent lessons / practice.  Each parent / child relationship moves through this  stage at a different pace, and talk or email me if you are concerned about this process with your child. If you are attending lessons and taking notes, keep reading below in order to gain a better understanding of the way to best support this music experience.


For Students Pre K - 4th grade, here are some thoughts for you:
You have a very special bond with your child. Yours is the voice they have heard and responded to since before they were born. During lessons, my job is to try to gain a bit of a peek inside their heads, and to hopefully have my voice become one that they hear and trust. This is a big job during just a few short minutes a week.  One thing that will help me in this endeavor is a communication bubble around me and your child. Inside that bubble, I am in charge and they are learning to trust me and hear me in a deep way. I want them to have eyes on me, my eyes will be on them, and you can be a gentle observer from the outside.

To communicate with parents I would like to talk with you at the beginning of the lesson to see if there are questions, and also at the end of the lesson to make sure that practicing jobs are clear, but the bulk of the lesson be uninteruped between the student and me. When I ask a question about practice at home I may glance at you for an answer but mostly I need to hear how the student answers my questions, even if (Surprise!!) it is not actually what happened, or if you have a different answer. Occasionally I may look directly at you and ask a question in order to gain clearer information, but this is not frequent.

It is a hard thing that I am asking parents to do.  To let go.  By our nature as parents we want to work and support and be involved and show we care.  In these "bubble" moments of lessons, I need you to be peaceful, let mistakes happen, let me watch, let the child play,  let go, and let it be.  I could write a whole dissertation on the mental and emotional reasons why this is important, and a key ingredient in having the child own their music experience, but I'm not going to attempt that today. :-)  If you would like more discussion about it, let me know. 

One more element in nurturing this peaceful and deep communication is time.  I need time in order to teach and communicate.  If you are more than 10 minutes late to a lesson, it is best if don't have that lesson for the day in order to avoid an atmosphere of stress.  

Thanks for listening, and three cheers for clearer communication lines in lessons!