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Resting your thumb in front of the keys is probably now an unconscious student habit. Break the habit by doing simple ‘thumbcentric’ exercises that don’t give the thumb a chance to rest anywhere...,
(Told ‘ya this might be useless)

On a digital you can play with the hand further forward but that can cause pain on the acoustic.

If the student has big hands, resting thumbs on that rail is actually the "correct" position of the thumb, because it preserves the natural shape of the hands.

I sort of had that impression too - or at least, for the thumbs to be hanging loosely.

As a result, there are alignment problems and the student feels like they need to brace against something.

He does this more when he's playing black-keys-only pieces, because those notes are fingered with 2, 3, and 4, and there's nothing for the thumb to do. There's a lot of tension in his hands because of pushing his thumbs against the wood. Maybe I should take him off the black-key pieces and get him to play only white-key-pieces that use the thumb often?

Thanks for all the responses, but sorry I didn't give more details.

The boy is seven and small for his age. He just started lessons this summer and is playing some music on the black keys and some on the white.

I may have misled you, putting the word "keybed" in the thread title. It's not the horizontal surface on which the keys are placed that is the place he's putting his thumbs (what I think AZN meant by "resting thumbs on that rail.") The boy is putting his thumbs on the vertical wood surface at the front of the piano, a little bit below the rail.

To describe it a different way, it's almost as if he's trying to push the piano toward the wall, using his thumbs, without them touching the keys at all.

Am I giving you a clearer picture of what I mean?

Pianistlady used the word "brace," which describes well what I'm seeing:



He does this more when he's playing black-keys-only pieces, because those notes are fingered with 2, 3, and 4, and there's nothing for the thumb to do. There's a lot of tension in his hands because of pushing his thumbs against the wood. Maybe I should take him off the black-key pieces and get him to play only white-key-pieces that use the thumb often?

Why?

Are his feet touching the floor? If he cant' touch the floor, he's really got nothing to balance with. Get a short step stool for his feet to go over the pedals and that should help. Also recommend to his parents that he have something similar at home. Even stacking some books can help in a pinch.

Try this:

When he is playing the 2-3-4 on black keys, put a little red dot sticker on the white key and say, "Thumb sits here."

He is probably referring to the increased key weight when you move closer to the fallboard. This is quite prominent on most uprights. Digitals usually mimic the grand action and are generally lighter to play anyway.

Practicing exclusively on my digital at home, I had not realized I was playing so far forward into the keybed. The digital does not have a fallboard and it is easy to develop the habit of playing quite far forward, with the longer fingers overlapping the back edge of the keys. That is of course not possible on the acoustic...
Sorry, I'm sure that's not relevant to the child's thumb.

I don't understand this (presumably) 'modern' method of teaching where beginners are playing exclusively on black keys using 2-3-4 and obviously not reading whilst playing. (Surely he's not reading F# - G# - A# while playing them?)

Personally, I think it develops really bad habits like this one, as well as not allowing the student to get used to the normal 5-finger position on white keys, which is important to develop proprioception for piano playing. The thumb is the most important finger for any beginner to get used while in alignment with the others, because its 'natural' (anatomical) position is in opposition to all the others - which is the way that kid is using it.