Will you learn coaching skills to support your musicical DC? Options

[boysmum]

At work, normally there are mentoring/coaching schemes to help employees to improve their performance.

For sports, sports psychologist is a key part of a performing team.

Do you think some sort of performance coaching will help a musician improve? Will you learn such skills to help your DC?

[Scooby Doo]

Undoubtedly some of the same psychology as used in sport can be applied to music.

eg The Inner Game of Music

Not sure I would go so far as to start 'coaching' my own child - it could so easily tip over into being too intense with them, and destroy their own motivation. If they have a specific problem, say performance anxiety, then I would certainly research that and try to help them, but personally I favour the 'hands off' approach to parenting. Each to their own...

[BadStrad]

Not sure what DC is in this context - I'm guessing Darling Child? Oh yes - I see it is.

I would expect the teacher to work on performance skills with the pupil, though from observing other learners, I'm not so sure they do. I guess I'm lucky that my teacher includes it in the lesson. As far as he's concerned there's little difference between practicing and performing - every note should be beautiful, or why bother playing it?

I agree with Scooby Doo - being too involved is not necessarily a good thing.

[soccermom]

I don't think I'd expect my children to have coaching outside their existing lessons, other than in the context of the various ensembles they play or sing in, or perhaps by an accompanist, but I would expect their lessons to include aspects of coaching.

I wouldn't try to do it myself, but that probably has much to do with my children's ages (15 and nearly 13) and the fact that I have a tendency towards control freakery that they do not always appreciate!

[corenfa]

I don't have children, but I believe that performance coaching can be very helpful for musicians of all ages. Mental toughness can be learnt, I used not to have it very much and I know my performance anxiety was worse than it is now. If I had known some specific techniques for dealing with it, I think 'd have done better musically at any age. If I did have children who were musical i would certainly read up on stuff like this.

[RobRoy]

Mine quite likes the fact that I can't so much as read music and have to have him whisper "Now" if I am page turning at concerts. It makes him feel that what he does is 'his' unique area of interest within the family. He would be horrified if I tried to go out and learn any form of coaching that influenced his music. It does mean that we have to make sure he gets appropriate advice and guidance from music folk whose opinion he does respect but overall the lack of parental involvement/interference seems to work very well.

That said, I guess it depends on the child, the parents and the interactions between them.

[BadStrad]

Mine quite likes the fact that I can't so much as read music and have to have him whisper "Now" if I am page turning at concerts.

Before I started music lessons my OH used to nod when he wanted me to turn the page.

[notmusimum]

I'm finding it difficult enough dealing with the musical maze as it exists at the moment. Don't think I'll be taking up any sort of coaching,

[Maizie]

I know, what am I doing in the Parents forum? This just made me think of something which is a bit off topic but might be of interest...

My manager at work has recently trained to be a coach in our work place. He will not be coaching people he knows or people from the same department or area. He will only coach people where he has no interest as a manger or employee in the outcome (no interest, I mean no stake, not an absence of enthusiasm!)

Anyway, the course he was on gave three definitions:
Training - where someone tells you how to do something. Press button A, click link B, say this, act like that. The trainer tells you this. So a music teacher very much does this.
Mentoring - where someone tells you how they did something or faced the same scenario. 'when I had an intractable manager, I dealt with it this way, and I will help guide you through this now'. Teachers get to do the same - providing examples of ways to tackle the tricky bits, while the student may find they get to pick betweekn the different approaches. See almost any thread on this forum about deciphering intervals (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Coaching - you will not be told what to do or how to do it. The coach will talk through your problems with you, ask questions about it, but ultimately their job is to help you find your own solution. They act in some ways simply as a frsh pair of eyes on the problem. The key thing is that you don't need any understanding of the problem itself, and in our company they are saying we actively don't want there to be any understanding.

Put this way, I think parents do a lot of coaching in their job as parents - we just don't call it that! I think that it is natural to be concerned about doing the 'wrong thing' when your child is involved in something you know very little about, as may be the case with music. But it does mean that you can't be a teacher or a mentor, so you have to be a coach, and help your child find their way to their own solution. I think in general, in day to day life, you have the skills to do this without having to go on a course for it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) because you are doing this as a parent all the time.

But, it's worth noting that one of the set books for my manager's course was The Inner Game of Tennis. So I doubt reading the equivalent music book will do any harm to your coaching abilities if that is what you want to do for your child (I also hold that what works for one parent/child wont necessarily work for others; I'm also aware that I don't have a child so, all in all, what do I know? Ha, maybe that means I'm coaching right now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif))

[boysmum]

Thanks everyone for sharing your views.

Thanks Maize for sharing your manager's story. I also just had some coach training at work, so wonder if it applies to my son.

BTW, just checked the internet, the inner game of music and tennis are from the same author.

[Norway]

I think if parents are encouraging, show an interest, and organise and supervise practise (until the child is self disciplined to do this for themselves, which is at a later age than most people think) then this is very helpful. The youngsters get on so much quicker, enjoy it more, are less likely to give up, and money isn't wasted as it so often is by paying the teacher to repeat the same lesson and supervise the practise that should have been done week after week. Some of my parents are paying 10 times more for the same amount of progress than others - not because their child is less talented but because without practice progress will be slow or non-existent. I know that it's not all about progress, but without some input of effort teaching and learning tends to get stuck in a rut.

[Susie]

I think if parents are encouraging, show an interest, and organise and supervise practise (until the child is self disciplined to do this for themselves, which is at a later age than most people think) then this is very helpful. The youngsters get on so much quicker, enjoy it more, are less likely to give up, and money isn't wasted as it so often is by paying the teacher to repeat the same lesson and supervise the practise that should have been done week after week. Some of my parents are paying 10 times more for the same amount of progress than others - not because their child is less talented but because without practice progress will be slow or non-existent. I know that it's not all about progress, but without some input of effort teaching and learning tends to get stuck in a rut.

Yes - I agree with this. I've had "non-musical" parents wonder how they can help - some actually declare they cannot help their child with learning piano (in my case). And I still dread the parent who comes along saying she just wants little Jane to enjoy playing - which I often interpret as "if little Jane doesn't want to do her practising today because it's 'too hard' or 'I'm tired' or 'I can't be bothered' then little Jane is not coaxed into doing just 5 minutes.

I will always give advice on how parents can help - arranging practise time, arranging performance opportunities etc. I'm sure that performance coaching will help young pupils, but they also need the practice opportunities to perform so I would think that would be the best role that a parent could offer.