parents
Parents, Participation and Part-time Attendance
I have a prime, after-school lesson time, and I’m considering filling it with a group of 8 and 9 year old girls who have been on my waiting list for a few months. I’m hoping for a Shared Lesson of at least 3, but it…
Using Parents as a Fun Incentive
I have a shared lesson of a boy and a girl. The girl practices religiously but the boy doesn’t like attempting anything unless he knows it will be perfect, he was losing heart and practicing less. The mothers of these 2 children had always attended…
Chat – Managing Parents Beyond the Foundation Session
Samali (AUS): Welcome to today’s chat session. I am Samali de Tissera from Perth, Western Australia and I will be hosting the session today. I have been teaching SM for five years now. Mostly I teach in shared lessons of two students. The topic for…
Issue with Interfering Dad in Lessons
I’m reaching out to you all for some much needed advice. I’m not good at articulating myself sometimes in uncomfortable situations, and I want to make sure that the email I send this father is VERY ARTICULATE. Here is the situation: I did an FIS…
Parents that Watch & Lean Ahead
I’ve got a territorial question this time round. One of young students aged 8 has a dad that likes to keep ahead by watching the SHM and learning the next song before our lesson. He just sent me a recording of him playing Minuet in…
Parent Wanting Extra Practice
I received the following note about a student of mine. She’s been taking 12 lessons and has just started Level 2 and we’ve done about every arrangement. She comes back every week 100% prepared. I think she’s come back one time in the 12 lessons…
Parents Who Don’t Participate
In both my shared lessons and private lessons (child student) the parents are present and usually sit and watch. However, this week one mother brought her lap top to use during the class and in another class the parents knew each other and carried on…
Ideas for Involving Parents
What are ways you involve parents to keep them active in the lesson? Sometimes I have a quiz where I ask questions and keep a tally of the score on the whiteboard. I did this last week with a private student (she started in a…
Frustrated Parent
I have a student (female, age 10) who is about to start FL3. She plays well and beautifully. However, for a while now, her parents have been struggling to get her to practice. Actually, it has been so bad that her mom emailed me that she wasn’t…
Frustrated by Complaints
It seems I’ve just been hammered recently with issues to the point where it is draining me emotionally. I just started a new class of 4 students that meets every other week. Two of the four have had some lessons (not very many) and two…