Practicing | Christine Goodner: The Suzuki Triangle Blog, Author, Speaker, Podcaster

5 Practice Strategies for Music Students with ADHD

There are often focus and attention issues in practice with young children when they are first starting to learn an instrument. Often students naturally build their ability to focus over time but, sometimes students are struggling with a bigger issue of ADHD which makes the focus needed to practice difficult for everyone involved.

The tips I am going to share below may help any child learning to focus for longer periods of time.

For students with ADHD they will likely need strategies like these to be able to practice for any significant length of time.

Before we go on to talk about specific strategies – let me tell you about my personal experience with ADHD.

When I was a young teacher a mother came to my studio with her son and said their former teacher would not work with him any longer because he was struggling in lessons due to ADHD (this was 15 years ago and I think there were far fewer resources and far less accessible information for teachers at this time).

She brought me a sheet of paper with the symptoms listed and asked me to read them and tell her if I was willing to try to work with him.

And there spelled out in black and white was a long list of characteristics that I could have written myself if someone asked me to make a list of all the things that frustrated me about myself.

It literally made my eyes well up with tears because I really realized for the first time that these things were not character flaws, they were due to how my brain functioned.

When I was young girls were not usually diagnosed with ADHD – especially the inattentive type. Instead my parents were told I wasn’t working up to my potential, my desk and locker were an inexplicably disorganized mess, and though I seemed to be doing my homework it just wasn’t making it back into school.

Being Diagnosed with ADHD in my 20’s was actually a relief to me because once I knew that I was struggling with something specific, I could learn to use strategies to work with myself and use my creative brain to my advantage instead of fighting myself all the time.

Whether your child uses medication or not, helping them learn the skills to navigate life with their unique, fast paced brain is important.

I credit the structure and creativity involved in music with helping me do just that.

Practicing Music with Grade School Child

Practicing Music During the Grade School Years

This post is first in a series about working with grade school students as they learn and practice their musical instrument.

How do we work successfully with the development of our grade school age music students, both as teachers and parents?

I meet people every week who tell me they wish they hadn’t stopped playing an instrument when they were younger.

Usually they stopped playing during the middle or high school years. This is when life gets busy and it’s hard to keep going with the instrument unless it’s a big priority in the family or there is a good social outlet for music by that age (more on that in a future article!)

If we value learning music as a part of our family’s culture and as an activity we want our children to grow up with long term the groundwork for being able to, and wanting to, stick with it long term is built for most students during the grade school years.

Working with the developmental stage our children and students are at as they approach the instrument is so important.

Without keeping this in mind we can get into all kinds of power struggles and difficulties that might be avoided with a little more perspective about what children at this age need.

The Center for Parenting Education has a great article outlining the basic developmental skills being developed at this age (read the article HERE).

The article has great suggestions about how to encourage emotional and cognitive development at this age. I’m going to share some of them below with my own thoughts about how they apply to studying a music instrument. (The headlines in bold below come from the article).

When we keep our children’s development in mind as we practice and work with these big tasks they are learning at this age, we are much more likely to be successful long term!

Praising them for trying to do things

Research shows that when we praise our children for their effort on a task they will work harder on such tasks in the future. Praising for “talent” or how smart they are really has the opposite effect. As parents we help students this age best when we notice the effort they are putting in and encourage it. Even if there is just a little bit of initiative and they are willing to keep trying when something isn’t easy right away, this is huge. Praise the effort!

Preschool Practice: Why does Progress Seem So Slow?

This post is second in a series about Preschool Age Students. You can read the first article here: Secrets to Successful Practice With Preschoolers. Often when we practice an instrument daily with our preschool age child it can be hard to see any progress at all. Progress is often happening, but it ca be very slow and gradual . As a teacher who only sees students once a week, I often notice the week to week improvements more than parents…

Secrets to Successful Practice with Preschoolers

There are many great reasons to learn an instrument as young as the Preschool years including: a child that shows interest, time to practice as part of the routine before school & homework begin, and that students this age are at a developmental stage where music will become part of who they are, just as learning their native language will be. A big key to a student's success at this age is for parents to know that they have a…

3 Winter Break Practice Ideas

In many studios, there is a week or two around the holidays with no formal lessons. It is always discouraging to come back at the start of the year and feel like progress has been lost and we have to spend a few weeks catching back up to where we were again after winter break. Don't let this happen to you! In an ideal world you can see this break from lessons as a time to share music with visiting…

Rules for the Practice Room

Practice is a daily activity for musicians and music students everywhere.

What spoken and unspoken rules for practice do you have in place to make sure it goes smoothly at your house?

Thanks to readers in the Suzuki Triangle Community for sharing your ideas and helping this list take shape! See which rule didn’t make the cut at the end of the list!

5 Creative Ways to Keep Practice Going During December

This is the time of year when it’s easy to get focused on the new year coming up.

We tend to take stock of the year: What were our goals this year? What did we accomplish? What are our goals for the coming year?

It’s a process I love and encourage you to try.

But today I want to talk about something else.

Something that we can lose sight of in the shuffle of all the holidays and all the reflecting we do this time of year.

There are still 33 days left of this year at the time I am writing this article. That’s just over 9% of the year that’s still left.

33 days is plenty of time to: improve a skill, complete a month long practice challenge, or prepare for an upcoming performance. There is still time to make real progress before the year is over and finding a fun way to keep momentum going is really important during this busy time of year.

It’s too early to throw in the towel and decide we’ve accomplished all that we’re going to this year.

With that in mind: here are five creative ways to keep practice momentum going and make the most of the 33 days left in the year:

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Advent calendar Practice Reward:

Are You Creating a Positive Practice Environment?

This article was originally posted HERE on Medium.com where Christine Goodner is a top writer in Music & Parenting. What is the practice environment like in your house? As a musician, and a music teacher, I know the environment we practice in has a big impact on the kind of practice we can do. Can we focus? Can we find something specific to improve and improve it? Can we work through our resistance to doing the hard work? How do we get…

The #1 Gift You Can Give Your Child

Parenting is an all consuming job. If you're reading this then I'm willing to bet you're a parent who takes that job seriously and tries to be the best parent you can be. Being a Suzuki parent can be especially intense sometimes, because we're asked to interact with our children so closely, to understand them well (when sometimes they do things no one can understand), and to help them play complicated instruments well. Unless you also homeschool, this may the…

Help Your Child Succeed at Music Lessons

15 Ways to Help Your Child Succeed in Music Lessons

Do one of of these descriptions sound like you? You signed your child up for music lessons because they have begging you for years to play an instrument. Or, you play(ed) and instrument and couldn't wait to get your own child started too. Maybe, you always wished you could have taken lessons as a child and are excited to provide the opportunity to your children. then reality sets in . . . After the honeymoon phase is over, you realize…