When I teach piano at school or privately, I do my job patiently and walk away...it's almost therapy for me to impart my knowledge. Closer to home, I teach my niece, and I am proud of her progress.

Why then, can I not teach my almost 8 year old son in the same way? He wants to play and he constantly plays what he can play so far. Lessons started off well and I let him go at his own pace. Far from being musically illiterate: he has innate rhythm (he plays drums quite naturally), he understands notation, and shows all the promise of a pianist-to-be. Patience and concentration is an issue for him, so I am encouraging him to practise in the mornings before school. His motivation and confidence is lacking and he resists in the same way many kids do, with all the same excuses. BUT he can do it when he tries. Nothing new there then. (There is a whole psycho-sociological conversation there.)

My problem I believe is ME!...Why when I do a lesson with him, can I not control my frustrations? Why do I end up snapping at him? How do I control this? It is simply never a problem with any other student.

My wife is telling me I could put him off. She may be right. However I also recognise that my parents did not give me an option when it came to learning the piano, I had to do it regardless. And it put me in good stead.

I don't think that you are unique with this problem.
It's not unusual for there to be difficulties with teaching your own children.
Sometimes it works but I suspect that in the majority of cases it doesn't.

If he is interested in playing then it may be best to get him a different teacher and to try to keep off his practice (apart from encouraging him to do it of course) unless he asks for help.

Then again even if he has an aptitude it may not be 'his' instrument.

hi chris, i have the same problem with my daughter. We did try an alternative teacher for a while as i found my patience wore so thin i ended up walking away which was not good but due to my teaching commitments i find it a real juggle trying to get her there on time. We even tried my niece as a teacher who is a very talented musician but this didnt work out for long as she moved away to go to uni. it is very frustrating i agree and advise you to perservere. He has obviously learnt alot from you so far.

My daughter does well with her violin teacher and plays violin in county orchestra, maybe consider a second instrument for him? you mentioned drums - does he have lessons?

sorry if i am not much help - just wanted to say i am in same boat as my daughter is around the same age - 9 albiet going on 16 with flame red hair and temper to match.!

[quote name='BeSharpNotFlat' date='Jun 3 2008, 11:27 AM' post='705038']
hi chris, i have the same problem with my daughter. We did try an alternative teacher for a while as i found my patience wore so thin i ended up walking away

But why did your patience wear thin?
This is the bit I am struggling with. With any other student I have endless patience. With my son I am irrational.

There was a thread on this subject last year - I think I started it but can't remember for sure. You might be able to find it on Search.

I think the problem is the difference between teacher-pupil and parent-child relationships. It is very hard to mix the two and could explain the 'irrational' feelings you express. I was the same with my step-son (now at uni) and I recall battles on the piano at 8.00am in the morning. They don't change though - I had an entirely irrational flip about my son's mobile phone the other day - he wanted to change from pay-as-you-go to a contract and I disagreed with him about it. The resistance from them is very very strong - even when they are adults (that goes for me too!!!)

Lucinda Mackworth Young's book 'Tuning In' has very good advice on this sort of thing - psychology for musicians.

[quote name='chris ward65' date='Jun 3 2008, 01:17 PM' post='705080']
[quote name='BeSharpNotFlat' date='Jun 3 2008, 11:27 AM' post='705038']
hi chris, i have the same problem with my daughter. We did try an alternative teacher for a while as i found my patience wore so thin i ended up walking away

But why did your patience wear thin?
This is the bit I am struggling with. With any other student I have endless patience. With my son I am irrational.
[/quote]

I think it is because we have so much invested in our own children and we know what they are capable of.... and want the best for them.
I don't teach my own children.... but commented in an e-mail yesterday to my son's teacher that he is a nightmare with me and practice. Not one of my pupils can make me remotely cross. I always feel calm with them(and they don't always practice... it just doesn't wind me up) but I fall out with all of my children when I try to help them practice. They think I know nothing (so I am wrong concerning Grade 3 rhythm. I am misreading it. Not them.) I expect more of them maybe than my pupils.
I remember as a child, my dad always accompanied my sister and I in exams.... and all our friends. He did loads of work with us coming up to an exam. He was lovely with my friends... but my lovely, lovely Dad and I would fall out BIG TIME and I'd end up in tears. He was lovely when practicing with my own children.... I don't know... there must just have been too much invested in me from his point of view. He knew what I was capable of and wanted me to do my best. He wanted me to be my best ALL the time.... whereas, with my friends, he'd help them loads.... but I suppose it just didn't matter so much!!!!!

I've had piano lessons with my mum now for 3 years, and i'm near enough to grade 8 standard piano, but i have found it very difficult at times, because usually it ends with me storming off to my bedroom, or my mum refusing to go on if was going to be rude! It works sometimes, but i usually end up in a bad mood anyway!
anyway, i'm getting lessons with a local concert pianist after the summer holiday, because we've got to the point where if i want to go on to do music at a college and study seriously, i needed a new teacher, because although my mum is perfectly capable of teaching to diploma level, it wasn't going to work out if i was still having lessons with her.

I'd just get your son a different teacher, because like you said, it may put him off piano. I wanted to play the piano when i was 7, and had the odd lesson with my mum, but hated it, and got put right off until i was 12 where i had proper lessons, because my mum has always been so much better than me, and then when i was 12, my gran (also a piano teacher) convinced me to take it up again because she thought i could be good at it, and because she new that i had wanted to play since i heard my great grandma play (also a pianist).

Jacob.

It is so difficult teaching one of your own children. My daughter has recently decided she wants to do a piano exam after a break of nearly 3 years with no formal lessons. Knowing how up tight we get with each other, we decided to break the lessons up and do just 15 minutes at a time on 3 or 4 days a week. We tackle just one topic eg one piece, a scale, one aural test at each session. So far, so good. Perhaps a little and often could work better for you too.

I feel I can be more honest with my daughter than I am with pupils about the difficulties of teaching some aspects of music. She is just as impatient with me as I am with her and we are very critical of each other. However, agreeing to limit the time we spend and call a 'time-out' if things start getting heated seems to be working OK.

Good luck!

There have been threads about this subject before and the common feeling seems to be that it's very difficult to teach your own children and probably best avoided, although of course there are some exceptions. As the mum of three grown up children who are all now professional musicans, I would say that although you can be supportive and that your own expertise is bound to be useful, it can also be very disruptive for the family to try to combine the two roles. My advice would be to start them off and then hand them over to someone else!

When my daughter decided that, despite (!) the fact that Dad played piano, she would also quite like to learn, we found a good teacher locally, rather than taking the risk of lessons with me.

Hi Chris

I taught my son from the age of 7. He's now 17 and recently passed Grade 8 piano with distinction. i also teach my daughter, and started her off at 4 years old. Now 15, she has also passed her Grade 8. My advice would be to persevere. You know you teach well, and your children are best off in your own capable hands. For me, it got easier as time went on. My son is off to music college soon - and surprisingly, like your own boy, he's also a good drummer - so I feel proud of what we have achieved together.

My daughter is continuing her lessons with me, post-Grade 8, and we are both really enjoying the new repertoire she's learning.

Don't give up on your son! I started my son with another local teacher when he was four years old, and I was soon getting frustrated because I knew he was under-achieving with her. That's why I transferred him to me!

All the best to you both!

I am afraid that I have total admiration for people like Sputnik, I gave up with my daughter after 2 weeks and put her with my mentor, which actually works really well, she is grade 6 now and whilst I think it would probably work better now that she is older and more advanced, I actually really like having someone else involved it means we can enjoy the music without the frustrations.

Or maybe I'm just a cop out!

I think it may sometimes simply be the personalities involved, in the same way that children will sometimes get on with one parent more than the other.

I taught my daughter up to grade 5, which was useful because we could fit it around other musical interests and events in her life, so that for example we could use the summer holidays for lots of lessons, when she had had a busy term at school or had taken a violin exam. However, I think I was rather strict at first, and expected a perhaps unreasonably high standard from her since I knew how good she could be. It was not always easy, and we had quite a few arguments "Mum, why do you shout at me, when you don't shout at other pupils?", so I learned to moderate my approach to her, and we really ended up getting on well. I always carefully put my "teacher" hat on as I started her lesson.

I think that SueHM has a point, and little and often may work well, because it doesn't allow enough steam to build up between parent and child. I have used that when teaching my son theory.

I do think it is incumbent on the parent/teacher to be able to control his or her approach very carefully, and to treat the child/pupil just like any other pupil (although I do confess to having the occasional explosion when I have explained something for the nth time! - we're only human after all). On the other hand, when the exam is passed after all the hard work and grinding of teeth, there is a special sense of satisfaction in the parent/teacher/child/pupil relationship that is not found in the usual pupil/teacher situation.

Sputnik must be a rare breed. Most people just can't do it - I tried it too and failed after six months. I think the problem comes from both sides: the parent is far more critical of their own child than someone else's because of reasons of identification. The child is far more easily stressed out by their parent delivering minor criticisms of their playing than by a regular teacher's because the child's self-esteem is so closely tied up in the view their parent has of them.

I can be remarkably patient when a pupil of mine makes the same mistake over and over again; sometimes I try and imagine how I'd react if it were my own child playing a C# instead of a C natural for the umpteenth time and know for a sure I'd be far more likely to blow a fuse. It's because we have so much invested in our own children and are far more likely to over-identify with them; if they make a stupid mistake, we almost feel as if it's ourselves who are stupid. Either that or it hurts us to an unbearable degree when they keep doing something wrong because we so want them to be clever!

Sputnik must be the rare type of parent who doesn't over-identify with his children, and his children must be the rare type of children who don't take it personally when their teacher-parent corrects them in some way, however minimal.

However, I disagree with Sputnik when he advises the OP not to give up, because unless the OP and his/her child can miraculously change their personalities, it's highly unlikely to work out. I'd say the opposite - give up now and pass the child onto someone else for music lessons before too much damage is done!

Oh how I can relate to this!

With my own pupils I am patience personified. I care about all my pupils but somehow they never work me up emotionally in a negative sort of way. I enjoy helping them develop and when they find something difficult I see it as a challenge to my teaching skills. How different this was with my own children. They only had to sit on the piano stool and I would feel the tension rising in me.

The GOOD NEWS however is that having recognised it really was MY problem I changed my attitude towards teaching my 2 boys. I even - don't laugh - used to ask them to go outside and ring the bell and come in like a "regular" pupil - somehow this would change my mindset and I could become a "teacher" rather than a parent. Strange but it really worked. That plus a good talking to myself and acknowledgement that they deserved the same quality of teaching as my other pupils.

I am glad to report that I taught them successfully to grade 8 and diploma level. We still love each other (mostly) and they still love the piano and we all enjoy playing duets and trios together. It can be done!!

However it is not everyone's cup of tea and personalities matter so do your best but be prepared to pass them on to another teacher if necessary and support in other ways. Good luck

Just wait till it comes time to teach him to drive!

Fantastic post and how I wish I'd had the wisdom at the time to stop myself getting pent up. Like you I used to get my son to go outside and ring the doorbell, and in the beginning we managed to set up a normal teacher-pupil relationship; it worked pretty well for about four months, but then arguments and tension started to break out. We struggled on for a while but the clinching factor factor was when my son mentioned to a school-friend he was learning the violin and was told that it was a 'girl's instrument'. And that really was it - we stopped soon after and he took up saxophone without an outside teacher soon after, which happily went really well.

Wish we'd been having this conversation back then and I could have taken your advice!

Well I don't think I'm such a rare type, nor are my childen! Looking back over the last ten years of teaching my two kids, I remember tears and tantrums (and the children sometimes got upset too!) and lots of hard work to make it work. Somehow it did. The bottom line was that the children loved music and really wanted to play. That's the message I got from Chris's first post - his son loves playing and wants to learn. The reason Chris's patience wears thin with this particular pupil and not others is - if my own experience is anything to go by - because he (Chris) has such an emotional investment in this pupil, who happens to be his child. Although we all care about all our pupils, the emotional investment isn't there. With one's own children it most certainly is - we so want them to succeed and to enjoy it and to make progress. And of course, as has already been said, the children themselves don't respond as they would to a "normal" teacher. The idea of getting the child to behave like any other pupil is a very good one, and I did it too - not to the extent of going outside and ringing the bell, but I put my own children's lessons in a run of piano pupils, so that my son would come in after another pupil had just left, and would be followed by someone else. That way it "normalised" the situation to some extent for both of us. I was in full "teacher mode" throughout the evening and treated my son the same as all the other children who came along.

The other thing I would say is don't listen to him practising! You will be tempted to jump in and teach him again, correct his errors and so on. I had to make myself not listen, not get involved. It wasn't fair otherwise, as with the other instruments they learned they only had their teacher once a week. I tried hard to keep to that with piano as well.

I hope this helps a little - but there's no doubt it's hard to be both dad and teacher!

I have the same problem - less patience with my own son (now 10). Recognising this, I opted for another teacher to teach him when he started 2 years ago. I still have a big input in-between lessons, but feel that when the patience wears thin, I can step back and remind myself that someone else is ultimately guiding him. We still have some friction and frustrations, but it generally works very well.

I teach both my boys reasonably successfully.

I view them as pupils when I am in teacher mode, the problem arises as they still view me as "mummy" and feel they can mess about. With no 1. child this is no longer an issue, he sings in a choir and has realised that mummy was right all along so now works well. Time will tell with number 2 child.

Problem 2 arises during practice, whch frequently turns into interim lessons if I am not extremely careful.

It can work, but only if you as a person are extremely able at compartmentalising yourself into your various roles.

There are days where I am more successful at this than others, overall it is a success.

I'm trying to avoid this, because I know I would end up as you describe at the start of the thread. My oldest boys is 5 and desperate to learn the piano. He also comes and sits with me at the organ and I let him pull stops etc, but I really don't want to teach him. However, living in the middle of the countryside, its not that easy finding a teacher. I have to get it sorted by September as I don't want him to lose interest.

Try it, but only if you're an extremely laid-back, detached, humurous sort of parent with enough self-discipline to give one lesson a week but keep your distance when he's practising except to call out 'lovely, dear! could I hear that one again?'

During the lessons see your child utterly as a stranger's child with no relation to you whatsoever. When he makes a mistake smile blithely and say: 'perhaps you'd like to play that again, but correctly' without a trace of identification or rising emotion. Ditto when he makes the same mistake a hundred times.

When he says 'mum I'm bored' you have to pretend it didn't happen but carry on as if he's that stranger's child. Ditto when he says 'er mum, what's for tea?' This may take mental contortions the like you've never had to consider before but you must press on regardless...

When my daughter was about four or five she wanted me to teach her the piano but when I began by showing her how to play one note with one finger she burst into tears and said "But I want to play the piano like you, not like Daddy."*

That was the beginning and the end of my attempt to teach my daughter and she has lessons with someone else. I do play an active part in helping her practise though.

* Although perhaps you don't have this initial hurdle if you are a teacher and your child sees how other beginners start.

Music lessons were a very important part of my childhood, not just becuase I enjoyed the music itself, but becuase it was an opportunity to form a positive relationship with an adult outside of my immediate family. For me that was important becasue things were not that great at home, but even if they are, surely it's a very healthy thing anyway isn't it? It's a teacher/pupil relationship that doesn't have the same pressures as school life, and it can often be a more equal, adult relationship than children will have with their school teachers and other adults they meet. It's very confidence building for children to share their enthusiasm for music with a non-family adult who will often be a professional in the field and may introduce the child to a wider musical/social circle. And it gets you out of the house and out of your parent's hair for half an hour a week!

If you teach your own children, surely you are not only making life very hard for yourself, but also causingyour child to miss out on all that?

Sorry, please forgive me. I've done it again - posted a reply before I'd written it. It must be the stress of teaching my son this evening

Oh how I can relate to this so much, but I love the idea of getting him to ring the doorbell. I'm going to go a step further though and put a hat on him saying "Pupil."

I've struggled for the past couple of years teaching my 12 year old son the piano for all the reasons others have said. My son does have some processing problems academically - he's not got special needs or anything, but I think it's a concentration problem, eg the other day I'd been explaining about one of his pieces being in Ternary Form. At the end of the lesson I asked him what Form the piece was and he blurted out "D Major." By the way, the piece isn't even in D Major I might add. He comes home from his school class music lessons and tells me things he's learnt which he never knew. Yet he flipping well did, but he obviously doesn't listen to me.

Finally, I've found a teacher who I think would suit him so much (my son has perfect pitch and is the best memory player I've ever taught - total opposite to his Mum ). This teacher, as well as teaching note reading, particularly encourages memorization and he's a magician in his spare time (which my son loves doing too). We agreed that he would do his Grade 3 with me in July and then go to the other teacher in September. However, tonight he announced that if I make him go to another teacher then he'll quit!

It's not just the lessons that's the problem - it's the practise too. When he does his scales he messes about with them in fancy rhythms to annoy me. (Mind you, he must wonder why I don't tell him off, as playing scales in rhythms in my view is one of the best ways of learning scales - shh, don't tell him ).

He goes to guitar lessons and gets on well with his teacher, and there's no problem there with the practise as
he loves the encouragement the teacher gives him. So why won't he listen to me and at least try another teacher?

ps My friend rang me the other day and asked my son if I was working. His answer was "No, she's just teaching in the music room." Maybe this is the key (excuse the pun) - he just doesn't take me seriously!!

Well, the points of view are gratefully acknowledged. My son has just begun drum lessons with a different teacher, so that deals with the new adult relationship outside of parent and school life.
I will hold back for a while on the piano front, and maybe come back with the doorbell approach. Meanwhile my son will watch his cousin improving: maybe this will fan his interest in the piano.

In the meantime, if there is anyone in the along the A13 area who teaches but can teach their own child, maybe we should trade our kids - You teach mine and I teach your's .

Thanks all.

Personally i wouldnt force the practicing, thats the one thing that can really put someone off.
I was never forced to practice, i was luck in one way that my parents were non musical so could not help me out in anyway, so everything was down to my own will power and wants.
I achieved Grade 8 Trumpet through all my own work.
Hopefully i can do this with my son and not be a puchy parent, although he is only three he loves having a blow on all the instruments we have.

Don't worry about it, it is exactly the same in my household. I have never ending patience with all my pupils, in fact my patience astounds me, especially with the adult pupil who week in and week out cannot remember that B comes before C in the alphabet. But with my 11 year old daughter the patience lasts about 2 minutes at the most. Anything I try and correct her or help her on in her piano playing ends up in a big row and when accompanying her to sing in a competition I more than once threw the sheet music on the floor and walked out telling her to learn it and accompany herself. I even screwed my copy of the music up at one point. Weeks after, just before the competition she meekly and innocently (?) asked me if I found it difficult to play the piece now after it had be screwed up and then had to be flattened out again to play.

Her piano tutor's fees are well worth paying to save me the stress of trying to teach her myself.

I found the difficulty was distinguishing between lessons and practice. It was very difficult to say "go and practise that one for next time", so it's been hard to emphasise the importance of regular practice. My son goes to another teacher for cello lessons, and we manage to practise that much better than we do piano with me. That might be because I want him to get the best out of the paid-for cello lessons!

My daughter learnt many instruments when young . She only had lessons on violin as she really wanted to learn it from when she could talk (at 9 months) and I couldnt play it. Everything else she thought she taught herself - but really it was with gentle guidance from me. The flare ups only ever happened when I poked my nose in too far or pushed her too much.
As said before, It is a lot to do with the difference between the teacher/child and parent/child relationships. Im now endeavouring to home educate our last child (aged 4) - so have to have the parent/teacher/child realtionship . A lot of it I believe is letting the child go at their own pace - even when you know they can go faster (especially where boys are concerned). Gentle guidance is good but forcing it on many kids just because they can - just dont work. I know - I get irate when my children dont go as fast as I want them to - but its a good lesson in patience! The kids also get there faster in the end if they want to do it themselves.: simple example: tried to make my 4 year old sit down at 9am every morning to practice letters (he can read fluently so didnt think it would be too hard). He'd do it with not much grumbling , but wouldnt remember how to do them the next day. Then decided to let him just play instead - then come questions - 'mum how do i do a 'g' for 'good' on the goodies shield Im making'... - I show him and he remembers. Its a real unique relationship we have with our kids, and if we are to teach them, we have to adjust .
My daughter played the grade 1 piano pieces at the age of 4 and Schumann fantasy 1 for clarinet (about grade 5 standard) at age 7 - but that was all she wanted to do - giving up the piano before she started school and not touching the clarinet much after the age of 8. I never forced her to play them in the first place !. She knew where I was when she wanted help and though she flitted around from instrument to instrument for many years, it did her no harm. Shes now at music school doing well.
Hope some of that wmakes sense - Im no good at being concise and to the point -and its late AND Im tired!

Well, here we are, a month and a half after the last post, and we've taken the plunge at last. Living in the middle of nowhere means it is hard to find a suitable teacher. He has been so keen to start, so off we went this evening. He has a little music bag and I insist he takes it out of the teaching room at the end and 'brings it to the lesson', downstairs. We had to establish a few ground rules at the start, like he was to treat me like his reception teacher, and I would treat him like any other of my pupils.

We got as far as some middle Cs and a few Listening Games, fingers crossed!

Good luck, it can work and be an incredibly rewarding experience for you both.

I've taught my own children at different times, with different degrees of 'success' with each child. With one it was quite clear from early on that the parent/teacher/child was not working very well for her (after couple of years she moved to another teacher) but with the other it feels like the most natural situation in the world and I would not have missed it for the world.

Enjoy yourselves!