3 tips for encouraging your child to practice the piano

Learning to play the piano can be a fulfilling experience for any child. As a parent, it can be difficult to get your child to practice enough to improve. Here are three tips that will help you encourage them.

Piano lessons are a good way for children to develop musical skills. But they can also help youngsters learn eye-hand coordination and focus and are a great place to make friends.

Many parents and music teachers simply recommend practicing for a certain amount of time every day. However, to kids, a time limit can feel arbitrary, random and forced.

Instead of setting a time for your kids to play the piano, set concrete daily goals. For example, encourage them to play the first few measures of a song without any errors, or to completely play a song's right hand without stopping.

Setting these concrete goals is a way for them to make tangible progress every day. It can show children what the actual value of daily practice is.

You don't want to have to bribe kids to do their daily practice, but you can offer rewards as incentives for reaching piano goals.

For example, you could tell your child that once they have learned and memorized a song, you’ll take them to buy a toy they’ve wanted. Or, you could tell them they're allowed to watch TV only once a daily practice goal has been completed.

Offering incentives is a type of positive reinforcement that could help drive many kids to sit down and practice at the piano every day.

Many children get frustrated or discouraged when practicing and simply give up. However, you can help see their practices through by encouraging positivity and motivation.

If you sense your child is getting frustrated, give them a five-minute break to get a snack or drink, get some excess energy out, and forget about their negative feelings. Also, be sure that you don't have any negative emotions to match theirs.

When kids express that they don't want to continue practicing or feel negative about their experience, counter them with encouragement and kind and motivational words to inspire them to keep playing.