By Janus Buch
In my guitar teaching business I interact with a lot of parents of kids attending lessons. The parents wants the best for their kids in terms of them being ably to learn and master the guitar. What they don’t always realize is how crucial a role they as parents play in this process. Supporting your child in the right way in learning the guitar is often more important than the kids attending lessons. Without the support and participation of the parents the child will not practice and the will lose interest in the guitar very fast. Adopting the right attitude as a parent and realising that you have an active role to play is the number one thing that separates parents of kids that gets really good at guitar from the ones that don’t. In this article I have outlined som “easy to implement things” that will help your child in becoming he best guitar player they can be.
Listen do great guitar music
Exposing your child your child to your musical influences on a continues basis can make a big difference. Kids do what you do, not what you say. So if you are listening to, enjoying and are enthusiastic about guitar based music, your kids will be as well. Try to play some epic rock music when they have to get up in the morning to really get them pumped. Listen to a guitarsolo in the car on your way to school. There are properly many more things, you will be able to implement in your day-to-day life to expose your child to guitar music, but these thing are easy to implement and they cost next to nothing.
Praise your child on the effort and not only on the result
Most parents often give praise to their kids, when the kid is able to play something new on the guitar. This is obviously a praising moment, as your kid can do something that they couldn’t before, but what is les obvious is the importance of praising the proces of learning. The proces of learning, practicing and playing the guitar is what is going to lead to the result that you and your child wants – E.I. playing the guitar at at proficient level. The effort your child puts into learning is even more important than whatever short term result, they may be able to produce. Musical development is a process that takes a long time, and if your child is able to sustain a level of engagement towards the process, the results WILL follow. You praising the effort will play a big part in this.
Focus on the short term victories
When asked, all the kids I teach answers that they DO wanna become very good guitarplayers. They don’t really have any idea of what it takes to become good at guitar though. In other words they want the outcome, but this is not enough to make them do the work that is needed for them become good. Because they are kids, they cannot see the long term connection between doing the work now and reaping the reward later. This is why the parent-teacher relationship is so important. It is the job of the teacher to lay down the strategy and the long term plan for the kids guitar development and then break it down into small manageable victories. Its is the parents job to do everything in their power to support this process. If both participants do their part, the kid will become a great guitar player.
Your assignment.
Your role in this is very important. If your want your child to become good at playing guitar you need to start thinking the way the parent of a virtuoso guitar player would think. The first step to doing this is to make a list of all the things you can implement TODAY to support your child in becoming great at guitar. This can be a list of 10 things, but if you really take the time this list can easily be 20 og 30 points long. You next assignment is to implement them ALL in your day-to-day life. Doing so will make a huge difference and you can confidently say, that you did everything in your power to support your child in learning the guitar.
Janus Buch is a professional guitar teacher based in the Vejle, Denmark. If you are local to the are and are searching for Guitar school Vejle, Janus offers the best value for money lessons for your child.