Helping Your Child Practice: 5 Tips for Parents of Young Musicians

Many parents with children learning an instrument have never learnt an instrument themselves, and as a teacher, I’ve often had conversations with the parents of my students about how tricky it can be to feel confident you’re going in the right direction.

But don’t worry!  As with every discipline, even ones as specific as learning an instrument, there are a ton of transferable skills, and you don’t need to be a musician yourself to help with the learning process. 

If you’re not able to attend lessons with your child, a good place to start if you’re unsure is to ask your teacher for things to look out for when practicing at home, or themes from lessons that the teacher is focusing on. Sometimes the best kind of help you can give is just to guide young students back on track when they lose focus. 

Here's few tips for parents to help practicing at home with younger kids. 

1.      Short but consistent practice sessions are great

You often hear anecdotes of people practicing for hours and hours every day, and sometimes it might feel like your kids won’t get anywhere if they don’t do the same. However, for players of all ages, and especially those in their first few years of learning, consistency is often the key. With a good routine, practicing for 15, 20, or 30 minutes can be plenty, and can be the right way to find the best balance between getting enough practice time during the week and making sure it’s as focused and efficient as possible. 

It’s especially important to remember this when it feels like progress might be slowing down. If it feels like practice is getting unproductive, first of all (as always!) have a chat with your teacher. Secondly, it might not be about how many minutes or hours of practice a week your child is doing, but how focused and attentive they are during their practice. For parents, managing the student’s attention and focus can be a simple as a quick tap on the shoulder or asking a leading question — in my experience, the smaller or more subtle the attention intervention, the better! 

2.      Nailing physicality early

One of the biggest things about learning an instrument that can sometimes be overlooked is physicality and relaxation. Excess tension in the body can make the learning process more difficult, and often serves as an extra obstacle students have to get over in all parts of their playing. This can come in the form of squeezing too hard with the fingers of the left hand, lifting the left shoulder too high or pushing down too hard with the head and chin for violinists and violists, or pushing the chest too far out and pulling the shoulders too far back in an effort to have “correct” posture.   

Every musician spends a lifetime working on reducing excess tension, but if you can start that process in early childhood, it will save trickiness down the track! There are many ways to work on relaxation, and everything helps — when teaching, I like to use body awareness exercises, “checking in” to different parts of your body with your mind, but there’s also lots of breathing exercises, stretches, or warm ups that can help as well. It can be as easy as asking, “How does your left shoulder feel?”

3.      Incentivising the right kind of work

One of the biggest differences with learning an instrument for younger kids is managing motivation and interest. It takes a while for kids to start developing the skills of self-direction and motivation, and as many people experience, it can be a lifetime journey. 

For younger kids, tools like daily practice charts, repetition counters, and stickers can be a great way of starting this process. I still have all of my old Suzuki books from when I was a kid, and flipping through the first few books, I can viscerally remember the excitement I had when choosing which specific stegosaurus sticker would be perfect for Perpetual Motion when I finished polishing it off. 

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4.      Keeping things light and fun

Learning an instrument is a long journey, and sometimes when it feels like practice is slowing down or the frustration is building up, it can be important to take a break and do something different. There are lots of different books of easy sheet music for pop songs, film music, or folk tunes that are a great way for kids to break from the normal routine and have a bit of fun. 

Creative kids will often create their own little games with things that they’re learning, and indulging that competitive spirit can lead to some of the most fun kids have in a practice session. Highlights from my own students include listening to a pitch and trying to guess the note, playing red-light green-light while playing pieces (freezing and remembering where you are in a piece before you start again can be surprisingly hard), and air-bowing an old piece and trying to figure out which one it is (though to indulge my own competitive spirit, I always win that last one!).

Theory games like Note Name Bingo, Musical Pairs, Rhythm Clapback, and Music Symbol Flashcards are a great way to make practice sessions more engaging. Try timing your child to see how many flashcards they can name in a minute—this fun challenge will have them practicing even outside of lesson time to beat their own record!

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There are also lots of ways to practice without the instrument, which leads to our next and last point!

5.      Listening, singing, and dancing

Music is a wide discipline, and learning how to use the tools is just one part of it! In addition to learning how to play the instrument itself, it’s also really important that kids get lots of stimulus in all sorts of different musical activities. Dedicated or background listening to all kinds of music in the car or at home can be a great way to familiarise kids with natural phrasing and musicality. By the same token, singing the pieces you’re learning is one of the best ways to figure out what something should sound like or how you want to play it. 

Dance classes, or anything movement related in early childhood (including things like Orff Schulwerk or Dalcroze Eurythmics) is also one of the best things to help with learning instruments, as they help kids associate music with movement and the body. 

Singing and movement training are also a great avenue to explore the community aspect of music too, which is always a great way for kids to find some more enjoyment and engagement.