Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum 7 year old student shut down

I have a 7 year old female student. Last year, she was doing very well-learning quickly and playing confidently. This year, the first thing she told me was that she didn't like the books I was using (her sister uses a different set of books). So I changed the series I was teaching her from.

Now she doesn't talk to me, and grimaces in pain when I point out mistakes when she plays songs to me for the first time.

At last week's lesson, I asked her to name some notes on a new song and even gave her the note card to help her with. She STILL got them wrong. There wasn't any further I could go to help her aside from naming the notes myself. When I told her to correct the mistakes, she put her head down on her bench and that was it.

I caved and for the first time, I went to see the mom, who then spoke to her daughter. She made her girl name the notes, which she did correctly, while crying the whole time. Oh, and coincidentally, she could not "find" her theory book until her mom made her rummage through every possible spot in the house (took a half hour). She found it in the piano bench, which she had told me that she had looked earlier.

Mom thinks that maybe her daughter doesn't function well so soon after getting out of school and wants her to switch spots with her sister. However, I'm not sure that's the entire problem.

Does this sound familiar? What should I do? She's been acting like this since the school year began, not talking to me, seeming to resent me being there. Should I give her a short break, perhaps until after Christmas? Or only have her choose her own music? I'm sure her mom would be willing to help as much as she can.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Gisele

This, as you might have guessed, has nothing to do with you. Something has happened to her either at school or at home and until that can get resolved, you'll get nowhere. Sometimes all it takes is a piano bench psychiatry session, although in your case it sounds like it's much more serious. A personality and attitude change such as the one you described is a big red flag.

If this is going to be a trend and not a blip on the map, I would talk to the mom and the child and ask that they please sort out what's going on outside of lesson before returning to lesson.

Hi Gisele! Yes, this sounds familiar to me.

How long has she been reading notation? What level is she playing right now? Is it possible she is hungry right after school? What is her at-home piano support like? I hope she has someone to sit in the room or even jump in and guide her while she plays at home.

If she is only 7, I would just keep the lessons upbeat and let her go back and play some pieces that she loves as review. If she starts to lie down on the bench, switch to an off-bench activity. She might feel a little overwhelmed with the note-reading, even if she can get the answers right. Keep reviewing and making it fun however you can.

I would also try some new approaches to learning her pieces (although I'm sure you are probably doing that already), and find some note-reading games and activities you can do in her lesson, and that she can do at home with her mom. She might need time to build more confidence in her note-reading, so you can keep helping her with that while focusing on other things, like rhythm, aural training, etc.

She sounds suddenly insecure and afraid of making mistakes. What is happening in the classroom? If the parents have noticed a change in her behaviour otherwise since the start of school, maybe they should investigate. She would have started second grade in school?

I have a student very much like this. Every few months she goes thru one of these "crises" after a year and a half of lessons. Her parents do not enforce practicing, so of course the child (who is 9 now) is progressing very very slowly. She finally got over a big hump about 2 months ago and again now she is in one of her crises. She clams up, will not cooperate, etc. Many times I have put up with this, but now I am fed up already, so I told her mother the lesson was over and I was leaving. Her mother got mad at the child, the child started crying...still not talking. I told them that the child should take a break from lessons. I know the child likes me a lot. I do not take it personally. She is one of 3 girls in the family that were adopted from China. First she was the only child. Then they adopted another little girl and she became the oldest. A year ago the parents adopted a 10 year old, so now she is the middle child. Of course she is going to have issues. (and she has a bucket load). The parents want me to start the oldest kid in Jan. (who is 11 now). I am not sure I am going to take her on because the parents just do not know how to enforce practicing whatsoever and its aggravating to me. I can just imagine who bad the 9 yr. old will feel if she permanently quits and then the older 11 yr. old newly adopted sister takes lessons with me and then does really well. OY.

Wow, if the parents have their hands full with adoption issues, I'm not sure I'd come down quite so hard on them over practicing. The children are really blessed to have found this family. Their outlook in China would have been pretty grim.

Perhaps another approach would help. Can you motivate them to practice by challenging them somehow? With one student, I asked them if they thought they could play a piece just once, no more, each day at home, then report back to me if they could. When the student asked why only once, why not more, I answered something like, I don't want you to get worn out. They usually return the next week proudly announcing they played the piece five times every day and weren't the least bit tired. (Reverse psychology at work).

Reverse psychology
+1

Great idea!

I will give it a try! She took a short break from lessons and is starting back today. She told her mother that she didn't want to pick her songs. So from now on I am just going to assign her stuff and that's it. Maybe its too much pressure to have choices. I have never experienced this before. Its usually only like 2 choices and she picks one of the two. I usually give her one of my choice and let her pick another.But since its an issue, i will just pick her songs out for now.

I am a Mom, not a teacher, but couldn't help replying. Parts of your description sound like my daughter. She is 9 now, and studies violin (,not piano. Around age 7 she had a major personality change that we are still trying to fully understand. Through kindergarten she was cheery, outgoing, confident, independent. Abrupt change in 1st grade, which we initially attributed to not liking her teacher.

The one issue that has really emerged is that she struggles with reading in school. It is frustrating and difficult for her and has impacted her overall self-esteem. We are still investigating why. Did you recently start asking your student to read music? Could that be the trigger? DD has now learned to read music pretty well but it took her longer than average and still gets her annoyed sometimes. She memorizes her pieces as soon as she can so that she can avoid looking at the book when she plays. I could easily imagine her in the scenario you described, naming notes correctly but crying.

Violin doesn't come easily to her at all, she learns slowly and is sometimes in tears over it but she cries even harder if we discuss quitting so we are supporting her with it and trying to make it as stress free as possible. And given her difficulties with reading, we are glad she chose violin instead of piano because she only needs to learn treble clef, one note at a time for now.