Never Let a Kid Quit Music? I Don't Buy It

A friend of mine told me last spring that she never lets her kids quit anything, because quitting is a habit and the habit gets stronger every time you allow it. She said it kindly, passing a tray of cut oranges at a Primary activity, while her nine-year-old sat under a folding table with a library book. I said something agreeable. I've been arguing with her in my head ever since.

She's right that kids need to learn they can stay in a hard thing. The rule is too tidy for a house with a violin in it, though, and I have the teacher bills to prove it.

Does letting a child quit teach them to quit?

Sometimes it does. If a child quits every Thursday and starts something new every Friday, you're watching a pattern and somebody should say so out loud. But "never" saves the parent from finding out what's going on in the child, and that's the part that takes work.

The music teachers I've read this summer say the same thing from their side of the piano bench. Most kids want out somewhere in the first few months, right when the easy songs run out and the hard ones begin. They call it the plateau. It's normal and usually no reason to stop. What they tell parents to do about it is stay steady and not force.

That doesn't mean force. Forcing rarely works. But gentle consistency? That works.

That's from the Brighton Music Academy, in a piece they put out in February. Forcing I've done. The gentle consistency part I'm still working on.

The Tuesday I made Emma stay

Emma started violin at six, in Orem, before we bought this house. Her first teacher taught out of his basement, which smelled of laundry soap and rosin. He was a fine violinist who stopped her mid-phrase and said "again" in a voice I can still do.

One Tuesday that spring, when she was ten, I parked in front of his house with Caleb two months old and asleep in the back and a house under contract that we had to pack by the end of the month. Emma wouldn't unbuckle. She wasn't sobbing. She sat with the case on her lap while the heater ticked and said, "He says again like it's my name." I told her we'd paid for the term and we finish what we pay for. Then I lifted the car seat out and walked her to the door, so pleased with myself for not folding. She went in and played and came out quiet.

She didn't say a word until we were back on State Street.

We finished the term and then moved, and she started with a woman who let her bring in a fiddle tune for the last five minutes of every lesson, and the practice fights mostly stopped. Mostly. She was a child and a Whitaker, so they never stopped altogether. But the daily dread I'd been calling a phase was gone in about three weeks, so it was never a phase. It was him, or the fit between the two of them, and the plateau advice I'd been leaning on didn't cover that.

She played another nine years and still picks the violin up when she wants to, so I can't say staying hurt her. I do wish I'd heard "again like it's my name" as information. I called one hard term a test of her character when it was a question about her teacher, and I could have answered it in a week by phoning someone else. Every list I've read since has a teacher change somewhere on it, and I wish I'd known to look.

How do I tell hard from miserable?

I use a rough test that gets me about three-quarters of the way. "This is hard" and "I'm bored" and "I don't want to today" are the normal weather of learning anything. Tears at the car door every week, or a kid who dreads one person and not the instrument, means I should go and look.

I asked the same question about Caleb and his homework this month, which I wrote about in my sixth grader cries over math. The two look a lot alike at 4:15 in the afternoon, a kid slumped at the table and me standing at the stove, and the difference only shows up if I stop what I'm doing and ask one real question.

Anger I notice, because it's loud. The quiet kid, the one who's gone flat and says "fine" about everything, I can miss for weeks. Emma was that kind of quiet on the way home that Tuesday, and I took it for calm.

And Caleb, who wants nothing?

Caleb is eleven and doesn't want to play an instrument and has said so since about the second grade, whichever one you name. He tried piano for most of a year when he was seven. He had a patient teacher and most lessons ended with him lying on the bench with his cheek on the keys.

I let him stop.

I didn't try another teacher first because she wasn't the problem. He wasn't interested, he told me so plainly and kept telling me, and I believed him.

I can't tell yet whether I regret letting that one go, and I've gone back and forth on it more than I expected to. He drums on the dashboard of the Odyssey with both hands the whole way to practice, he knows every walk-up song in the league and he sings at the top of his lungs whenever Lily starts a hymn, so something in him likes music. I don't know if it wants a keyboard. As ward music chair I have a professional interest in the answer, and I've been trying to keep that interest from doing the asking.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should a child stay in lessons before quitting is okay?

A school term at the very least, because the first few months are the hardest to read. But I'd put more weight on what's happening than on the calendar. A kid who's miserable in week three of a bad fit shouldn't wait for the term to end, and I wish somebody had said so when Emma was ten.

What if my child likes the lessons but hates practicing?

Mine did for a while, and what helped was a set time of day, same as dinner, kept short. Twenty minutes with someone paying attention beats an hour of sitting there angry. Let them play one thing they chose even if it makes you wince, and then go sit in the other room.

Should I make them finish the year?

Only if finishing helps them, and you're the one who has to check. A rough patch with a good teacher, yes, stay. The Tuesday car-door thing, no, and I wouldn't march a ten-year-old in just to prove a point I'd already decided on.

Can a child come back to music after quitting?

They can, and the ones I've talked to came back on their own terms, later than their parents hoped. I'd keep the instrument in the house and say nothing about it.

What I'm doing Saturday

I'm going to ask Caleb on Saturday after his game, when he's hungry and cheerful and I'm not holding a bill. I won't ask whether he wants lessons. I'll ask him to name one song he'd like to be able to play, and if he says none I'll leave it alone and try again at Christmas.

with love, Melissa