GOOD LUCK DaeDae! We will miss you!

From Ms. Michele's Bench

I have a storage unit that I desperately need to clean out. Every time I think about tackling it, I tell myself, “I’ll do it next weekend.” Then next weekend comes, and somehow the storage unit survives another week untouched.

The funny thing is, I know exactly what I need to do. I need to make a plan. I need to break the job into smaller steps, decide what I’m keeping, what I’m donating, what I’m throwing away, and tackle one box at a time.

So why don’t I?

Because sometimes a task feels so overwhelming that even making the plan feels like part of the problem. I think procrastination is often misunderstood as laziness. Sometimes it is simply avoidance. A task feels too big, too complicated, too unpleasant, or we aren’t quite sure where to begin. So we put it off. And in the moment, putting it off gives us a little relief.

But that relief doesn’t last. The unfinished task doesn’t disappear just because we aren’t working on it. Instead, it takes up real estate in our minds.

Every time I think about that storage unit, there’s that little reminder that I still haven’t done what I know I need to do. So now I’m not only dealing with the original task, I’m carrying around the guilt and frustration of continuing to avoid it.

What Does This Have to Do With Music Lessons? Quite a lot, actually.

I see this same pattern with students all the time, particularly younger students. A child sits down at the piano, opens the assignment book, and sees several pieces, exercises, scales, corrections, and instructions. To an adult, it may look like a perfectly reasonable set of instructions. To a seven-year-old, it can feel like a long list written in a different language.

Then the child avoids practicing. The parent reminds them. The child still doesn’t practice. Eventually, frustration sets in on both sides.

But before deciding that a child is lazy, unmotivated, or simply doesn’t want to play an instrument, I think it’s worth asking a different question:

Why aren’t they practicing?

Not practicing and not liking the instrument are two very different things.

Of course, there are children who genuinely lose interest in an instrument. But in my experience, that is often not the real issue. Sometimes they don’t know how to organize their practice. Sometimes the assignment feels overwhelming. Sometimes they are frustrated because something is difficult and they don’t know how to fix it. And sometimes there are simply a lot of other things they would rather be doing.

None of those things necessarily means they don’t like music or should stop taking lessons.

Young Children Need Help Learning How to Practice.

I don’t think young children can be expected to manage their practice completely on their own. We wouldn’t hand a seven-year-old a grocery list, drop them off at the store, and expect them to figure out the rest.

In the same way, we can’t expect young children to automatically know how to organize a practice session.

A parent doesn’t need to be a musician, and you don’t need to sit beside your child correcting every wrong note. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t!

What young students often need is help with the structure:

“Let’s see what your teacher wrote down.”

“Okay, let’s start with this piece.”

“You’re supposed to work on measures 12 through 16. Let’s just do those.”

“Great. What’s next?”

Those little prompts turn one big task into a series of small, achievable ones. Over time, we gradually hand more of that responsibility over to the student. Eventually, the goal is for them to sit down, look at their assignment, make a plan, identify what needs work, and practice independently.

But independence is something that develops over time. With guidance and encouragement, young students gradually learn how to manage their own practice sessions and become more independent musicians.

So if you find yourself wondering whether lessons are worth continuing because your child isn’t practicing, I encourage you to talk to their teacher first. Let’s figure out what’s getting in the way.

Maybe they need a different practice plan. Maybe the assignment needs to be broken into smaller pieces. Maybe they need a little more support and structure while they’re learning how to practice independently. Maybe they need help developing a routine.

But let’s find out what the problem actually is before we decide on the solution.

I know I should take my own advice. The storage unit feels overwhelming because I’m looking at the whole project at once and anticipating all the obstacles I’ll run into along the way. Instead of continuing to tell myself to “just do it,” I need to focus on one part of the project at a time.

Easier said than done.

And that's the real lesson in all of this. When we're struggling to do something we know we need to do, we often assume the problem is a lack of discipline or motivation.

We might be tempted to call someone lazy when they aren’t accomplishing what we think they should. I've been guilty of calling myself lazy when I have a big task looming and keep putting it off.

But labels don’t solve problems. Sometimes they create new ones. Once we put a label on a behavior, we may stop looking for what’s really behind it and simply accept the label as true, even when it isn’t.

Instead of asking, “Why won’t you just do it?” perhaps a better question is, “What’s making this so hard to do?”

Whether we're dealing with our children or ourselves, we get better results when we lead with curiosity rather than judgment.

Sometimes a different question is all it takes to find a better answer. 

Best,