Senior Instructor at Halifax Guitar Lessons
You know how cool playing guitar is and you also know there are great benefits too, so you decide you want your child to learn it.
They may have already shown interest in learning and asked you about it but they may not have.
You buy them a guitar and then you find them a teacher to show them how to play.
At first, they seem interested which is great. It’s new, they are willing to go to lessons. Awesome. So far so good.
Next thing you know you are struggling to get them in the car to go to their lesson. They would rather not go. Guitar is cool but they would rather stay home and play video games.
This is not how you expected thing to work out. What happened here? What do you do?
Find Out The Real Problem
The first thing most parents assume at this point is that their child is simply no longer interested in guitar. But this may only be the symptom of the real cause.
Stopping their lessons at this point may be the easy thing to do but it will not solve the problem. Unless they truly don’t like guitar. This is rarely the case.
What kids usually don’t like at this point are many other things. Many times, they do not like their guitar teacher. Maybe they get angry at them or expect more from them than they are capable of. This actually happened to one of my kids.
Another thing that typically leads to this are parents expecting their kids to practice guitar at home every night like it is homework.
I don’t have a problem with encouraging your child to practice at home but trying to force them to do so by threatening to stop lessons if they don’t practice (or other negative consequences) is a recipe for disaster.
Learning guitar can be fun but sometimes it can be a difficult. Kids prefer to have fun, as we all do, so many times they will go play video games instead of practicing guitar.
It’s not that they don’t like it, they just have more fun playing video games for now.
So, knowing why they do not practice is a good place to start. It could be many other things too. I only named a few.
And it goes without saying, if the problem is a bad guitar teacher you need to get your child out of that situation as fast as possible and find a good teacher that they will hopefully be willing to trust and learn from.
Not Making Progress Is Typically The Root
Any of the problems mentioned above can cause your child not to want to go to guitar lessons anymore and I would not blame them either. They are all valid reasons.
Especially if they have a bad teacher that does not treat them properly. That is unacceptable. I already addressed that specific case so let’s look at other things.
The root of most problems that would cause your child to not want to go to guitar lessons is usually the same one. Kids like to progress and have fun. They like to win at things.
If they are not successful when they go to their guitar lessons, they are not going to want to come home and experience more frustration.
And actually, this is not something that is specific to children. Adults will act exactly the same way when the process to learn guitar is not fun.
That’s why you should not force kids to practice. It will connect a negative emotion to guitar and they will begin to hate lessons, guitar and resent going.
Instead you need to help them be successful.
Help Them Be Successful
I recommend you never force your child to go to guitar lessons. If they do not enjoy it they are not going to make any progress anyway so you are wasting your time by forcing them.
I also recommend you do not force them to practice guitar at home. They will resent practicing their guitar and will not make any progress anyway because they will just fart around until your time limit is over.
None of this is fun and none of it is going to instill the love for playing guitar into your child.
What you want to do is help your child be successful and in order to do that you have to start with the root of the problem. You have to find a way for them to have success on guitar.
The best way to do this is to find the right teacher with the best approach for your child. Most guitar teachers are not trained to teach and certainly not children.
Finding The Right Guitar Teacher Is The Most Important Thin
Finding someone with the proper training and experience and actual proof that they have helped children learn and be successful on guitar is what you need to help your child be successful.
You must be very careful with the teacher you choose because they can make or break your child’s love for music and guitar.
A good teacher will make sure your child enjoys the process of learning to play guitar which is the most difficult thing to do, especially with kids.
That’s because guitar is not easy to learn, especially at the start, and especially for children. Their motor skills and mental capacity are not yet fully developed so it is more challenging for them.
The right teacher will understand this and be patient with your child. You need to be patient as well and not force them to practice.
It could take weeks or months, but once they make it past the initial stages and start to get a better command of the instrument their passion and desire to practice will be ignited.