As a parent with a musically gifted child, you have a responsibility to help them nurture their talent and help them become better each day. No matter how excited they are initially, there will come a time when they won’t want to practice as often as they should. You wouldn’t constantly fight with your child over missing practice sessions or dedicating too much time to their music that they fail to perform well in school or neglect their house chores. You need to create a delicate balance and ensure your child remains motivated to create music. This article will give you helpful tips on how to keep your musically gifted child motivated.
Let the child choose the instrument
You might be a massive fan of the piano, but that doesn’t mean that your child should follow in your footsteps. Thrusting your desires upon them is a sure way to make them lose motivation. An excellent start to keeping your child motivated is to let them choose the musical instrument that gets them excited, even though it is not what you would have wanted.
Be their biggest fan
Undoubtedly, there are days when your child will feel like they are not making progress, leading to frustration and demoralization. You can motivate them to keep pressing on by being their cheerleader. Anytime they play at home, you can listen in and make helpful remarks. Ensure you attend their performances and constantly check in on how they feel about music and ask how you can make their musical journey better for them.
Select the right tutor
There are so many tutors out there, some of whom are only looking to make a quick buck. When choosing a music tutor for your child, select one who can inspire and motivate them. Ensure the tutor can personalize their lessons to meet your child’s needs and use improvisation to bring out your child’s musical imagination. Most of all, your child should be with a tutor who will ensure they have fun throughout their lessons.
Choose an appropriate instrument
Now that your child has shown interest in playing the guitar or the piano, you need to select a quality instrument to help them become proficient. An old guitar collecting dust in the basement might not be the best instrument to help your child learn. Ensure you get your child the right instrument that will suit their size and stature and upgrade the instrument depending on their level of proficiency. Depending on your budget, you can either buy, hire, or rent an instrument.
Encourage good habits
For you to motivate your musically gifted child, you should foster good habits, such as sticking to their schedule and maintaining a good posture. During their practice sessions, ensure you keep away all the distractions such as the TV and keep the phones away till they are done. Bad habits are hard to break and detrimental to their musical career.
Allow your child to plan their schedule
By now, you have probably noticed that whenever you tell your child to do something, they almost always don’t want to do it. Your child shouldn’t see music as a forced discipline. Otherwise, they won’t be motivated to practice. To keep your musically gifted child motivated, you need to put them in control of their schedule. Allow them to draft a practice timetable and decide when and what time they want to play. If you feel the schedule is good, you can enforce it.
Go for in-person lessons
Modern technology has allowed us to have many platforms such as YouTube, where gifted musicians create content and teach music. However, we recommend hiring an in-person tutor instead of learning music online. In-person singing lessons for kids provide your child with added motivation, and their tutor will be able to teach them the proper posture and techniques to become the best at what they do. Be sure to do background checks and avoid leaving your child alone with an adult.
Give them bite-sized challenges
Creating a challenge is a better alternative than asking your child to practice. A challenge will also help your child make progress faster. You can start by giving them a specific song to play and challenging them to learn how to play it within a specific time frame. Ensure that the task is not too hard for their level of proficiency, lest they end up feeling frustrated and demoralized.
Celebrate their achievements
It is not easy to learn how to play an instrument from scratch and be good at it. The journey is full of ups and downs and requires lots of discipline. An effective way to keep your child motivated is by verbally praising them whenever they stick to their schedule or do well during a performance. You could also keep a journal of all their achievements or paste sticky notes with encouraging remarks in their practice area. Celebrating their little victories will motivate them to accomplish more outstanding tasks in the future.
Let them watch videos online
In addition to their in-person classes, let your child watch online tutorials to gain more knowledge. Have your child identify a mentor or a content creator online who plays their favorite instrument exceptionally well and draw inspiration from them. Online lessons are an excellent supplement for the knowledge they receive during their regular classes.
Take them to concerts or shows
It is your responsibility to teach your child to develop a love for music. An excellent way to motivate your musically gifted child is to take them to shows and concerts and show them that music is a special privilege not available to all. Let them know that they will soon be on a stage with thousands of people sitting in an audience to watch them play with enough discipline and practice.
Wrapping up
Music lessons teach your child to play an instrument as well as provide an excellent outlet for stress and anxiety. Music lessons have also been known to boost children’s cognitive, intellectual, and perceptual development. We hope this article has helped you figure out how to motivate your musically gifted child.