Comparisons
It’s so easy to make comparisons between our children and other students in the studio, at workshops, and institutes.
We see other children that can seem like they have endless concentration, know all their pieces easily, or don’t struggle in any way.
What we may not know is that the book 3 student we see easily playing everything in front of us, may have spent the first two years of lessons rolling around on the floor and having all sorts of attention issues. In fact, it took endless patience and a lot of work from both the teacher and parent to keep things going at all.
Or that Book 4 student you see who is always polite and well prepared for recitals . . . what we cannot see is that for a few years the student and his mother fought in practice . . . everyday.
They were miserable and wondered if they should quit because the whole thing was so stressful. (This is a true story – one that has a great ending because when this came out the parent and teacher were able to talk about how to practice differently and the parent put in a huge amount of work changing the dynamic during practice . . . things are so much better now!)
