Students who are in their upper-elementary school and middle school years will need a different approach to practice than younger children. Older children and pre-teens are all over the map in terms of maturity levels, mental and emotional capacity, willingness, and independence. This is where it is so important to take your child's personality and habits into account.
Start by asking yourself these questions:
Does my child manage their own time fairly well or do they need frequent reminders to take care of responsibilities?
Is my child usually eager to practice or do they tend to be resistant about it? If they are resistant, what do I think the reason for their resistance is?
About how long can my child focus on a task before they get tired, frustrated, or distracted?
Does my child often have strong emotional reactions when faced with something that requires a lot of mental effort to work through?
Is being consistent about sitting down at the piano every day or practicing thoughtfully and effectively more of a struggle in your home?
Just answering these questions will likely give you some great insight into how to help support your child's piano practice in this stage of their growth. Some children in this age range still need a lot of hands-on support from their parents, while others are ready to take more ownership for their piano practice. It's important to meet your child where they are at rather than trying to push them to a level of responsibility they may not be ready for yet.
For ideas on how to directly help your child to practice, review my previous posts on creating a practice routine that works for YOUR family and practicing piano with your young child.
When your child is ready to step into more independence, you can ease into these transitions in a number of ways. Let me give you a few examples.
For the child who usually still needs a reminder from you to practice, you can test the waters of independence with them by discussing a time to practice and guiding them through how they can set up their own reminder to practice. This can be an alarm on a watch or other device that they have access to or even a sticky note somewhere they are likely to see it at that time of the day reminding them to practice.
Another thing that can work really well is building practice into an existing routine by placing it immediately after another task that happens every day like eating a meal or brushing teeth. The really important thing here is to make sure that you involve your kid in the process of deciding when to practice and clearly defining the expectations with them.
Now, let's say your child is really good about sitting down at the piano on their own, but they kind of rush through everything and don't really "practice" so much as just playing through their pieces. In this case, you can encourage deeper practice by staying nearby and giving constructive feedback while they practice. Here are some examples of feedback you might give:
"You can play that one so fast now! I'd like to hear the B section more clearly though, can you play that again a little slower and see if you can make the notes stand out more clearly?"
"I noticed you got stuck in a few places, what did your teacher say to try?"
"That was great! I wonder what it would sound like with more dynamics, how can I help you with that?"
"I see you getting really frustrated. What can you switch to for a minute to give your brain a break?"
Constructive feedback is often better received when you first acknowledge what was done well. Always aim to keep a positive tone and ask questions rather than giving orders. This is especially important for the child who is resistant about practicing.
On the topic of resistance, there are different reasons that children show resistance. Sometimes it can be a desire to make more of their own choices, aversion to being told what to do, fear of failure, or dislike of the mental effort that piano practice requires. Whatever the case may be, giving your child more of a say in when and how to practice should help foster more willingness in them.
Be your child's partner and be willing to loosen up the reigns at this point in the journey, so they can begin to spread their wings and find that spark of motivation within themselves to develop their musical craft! Enjoy the process and find what works for your family.
Thanks for reading and best wishes in helping your child flourish as musicians in this stage of life!
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