Many years ago my daughter began learning how to play the piano, and she LOVED IT. But for some reason getting her to "practice" was harder than pulling teeth! And I know from experience that if she didn't practice she would soon stop loving it because she wouldn't experience any kind of progress. Kids get bored quickly if they don't see any significant progress. That's why video games have levels, and earlier levels are easy to get to.

So I came up with a plan. I call it the show me/teach me method. And it's very simple. Randomly throughout the week, when she's not preoccupied with something fun, I would say "Hey Ciera, show me what you learned in piano yesterday."

Kids love showing off what they know! After I let her show me for a little bit I would say "that's really cool! Can you teach me?"

Now, I don't remember much about my high school math class but one thing that really stuck with me was when my teacher told me that the best way to learn something was to teach it to someone else. That's part of the reason why I became a teacher.

Ciera was always more than happy to try to teach me what she learned, and it was the cutest thing ever!

Now this next part is really important: enthusiasm makes all the difference! If you're truly interested in what they're learning they'll pick up on that and want to do more. If you appear bored or uninterested they won't want anything do to with it.

Not only does this help your child practice, it's a fantastic bonding activity that you'll both remember for a long, long time.

Hope this helps! Feel free to comment below some of your methods for getting your kids to practice.

Hi, I'm Forest

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