This is a sad post. A very sad post.
When Katya turned six years old and we moved to Japan, she started taking piano lessons from Miss Bridget. In our minds, as parents, we never had a question whether or not our children would have piano lessons--learning to play the piano was equated with learning how to do math in our family. After Japan, when Katya was 9 years old, we found Misses Eldred who has been our family piano teacher for the last four years. It has not always been easy for Katya to stay motivated--lots of ups and downs depending on what pieces she was learning how to play. After a while it's become really clear that her heart is just not in it...at all. She didn't enjoy the process of learning each piece and not even the act of performing a finished piece. It was becoming more and more stressful to get her to practice and many times her stubbornness would win, unfortunately. She was just so unhappy doing it and would much rather be singing or reading.
Just for the record, our original deal for years was that Katya would have a choice at thirteen years old whether or not she would continue piano lessons--after all, that would mean she'd had seven years of lessons. By the time March of this year rolled around (Katya is still twelve and is not turning thirteen till July), she was so swamped with drama performance practices and homework that she was barely practicing. A long Easter break was coming up anyway and then we knew big adjustments would come during the pack out and move...so we made a decision to let her stop the lessons.
My heart hurts...especially because it's been almost two months since she quit lessons as I am writing this post, but I've hardly ever heard her sit down and play the piano since then.
SHE is happy though. And our only hope is that she'll still remember her piano lessons days with fondness and will be motivated to keep playing.
Lyana.
When Katya turned six years old and we moved to Japan, she started taking piano lessons from Miss Bridget. In our minds, as parents, we never had a question whether or not our children would have piano lessons--learning to play the piano was equated with learning how to do math in our family. After Japan, when Katya was 9 years old, we found Misses Eldred who has been our family piano teacher for the last four years. It has not always been easy for Katya to stay motivated--lots of ups and downs depending on what pieces she was learning how to play. After a while it's become really clear that her heart is just not in it...at all. She didn't enjoy the process of learning each piece and not even the act of performing a finished piece. It was becoming more and more stressful to get her to practice and many times her stubbornness would win, unfortunately. She was just so unhappy doing it and would much rather be singing or reading.
Just for the record, our original deal for years was that Katya would have a choice at thirteen years old whether or not she would continue piano lessons--after all, that would mean she'd had seven years of lessons. By the time March of this year rolled around (Katya is still twelve and is not turning thirteen till July), she was so swamped with drama performance practices and homework that she was barely practicing. A long Easter break was coming up anyway and then we knew big adjustments would come during the pack out and move...so we made a decision to let her stop the lessons.
My heart hurts...especially because it's been almost two months since she quit lessons as I am writing this post, but I've hardly ever heard her sit down and play the piano since then.
SHE is happy though. And our only hope is that she'll still remember her piano lessons days with fondness and will be motivated to keep playing.
Lyana.
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