Some of my favorite high school memories involve music. I played flute in the marching band, and I still remember traveling with my friends to perform at Disneyland in our senior year. Those trips were fun, and the friends I made in band class are the only high school friends I still keep in touch with.
But getting there involved years of music lessons that I didn’t exactly choose.
I started piano lessons in fourth grade, which meant giving up after-school hours when I’d much rather have been doing almost anything else. Eventually, I switched to flute and continued playing through high school. By then, I was good enough to enjoy being in the marching band, but years of being told to practice left me with mixed feelings about music.
My husband had a similar experience with the viola. He spent countless hours practicing an instrument because his parents wanted him to. Today, decades later, he doesn’t play it.
Neither of us wanted to repeat that experience with our own kids.
We decided not to sign them up
When our kids reached the age when many of their friends were starting piano, violin, or other music lessons, we took a different approach.
We didn’t say no to music. We simply didn’t volunteer them for it.
If they wanted to learn an instrument, we told them we would support them. But we weren’t going to spend hundreds of dollars on lessons and then spend the next several years nagging them to practice something they never asked to do.
It wasn’t always easy to stick to that philosophy. As a parent, it’s tempting to look at all the activities other kids are doing and wonder whether you’re supposed to be signing your kids up, too.
Music seemed particularly important. I knew firsthand how much kids could get out of being part of a band or orchestra. I also knew that learning an instrument can teach discipline and give kids an outlet for creativity. I didn’t think those benefits required us to force it on them.
Eventually, they came to us
Then something interesting happened: They asked about music lessons.
My daughter eventually decided she wanted to take acoustic guitar lessons. Later, my sons got interested in music, too, signing up for electric guitar and drumming.
Because they chose these activities themselves, the dynamic was completely different from what I remembered from childhood.
I’m not hovering over a piano bench telling someone to practice scales. I’m not threatening to take away screen time because someone hasn’t picked up a guitar.
They know they have to practice to get better, and they’re more invested because the decision to play was theirs.
I get to enjoy the show
The biggest surprise has been how much more enjoyable music is for me as a parent.
Instead of being the kid who is being told to practice, I’m the mom sitting in the audience with my phone out, waiting for the performance to start so I can record them.
I get to cheer when they nail a song and encourage them when they don’t. I get to listen to them practice “Johnny B. Goode” in their bedrooms and watch their confidence grow.
And because they chose this for themselves, their accomplishments feel like theirs.
Maybe that’s what I was really trying to give my kids by taking music lessons off the parental to-do list: not necessarily a childhood without instruments, but one where they get to decide what they want to become good at.
After spending my childhood being told to practice, I’ve found that one of my favorite parts of parenting is not having to be the practice police.
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