A childs first piano recital is an important one because it establishes a performance history they will look back on - unless theyre too young to remember it! So why wait until your child is an adolescent to give them piano lessons when they will be much more concerned about their peers, and feel uncomfortable playing with students who have had years of experience. Look at your young child and imagine them as a fearful adolescent at their very first piano recital, wondering why their parents hadnt given them piano lessons years ago? Now image that you didnt wait to be there! And enroll your children in piano lessons when theyre young.

If you did wait until your child is an adolescent to give them piano lessons, explain to them that they will need to accept the fact that other students in piano lessons with them will have been taking lessons for a long time. Explain also that you and their piano teacher cannot insulate them from this fact. Their piano teacher will not be able to create an environment where they will always be with students of their own age and limited experience.

The fact that your child is a fourteen year old beginner cannot be changed. But over time as your older beginner in piano lessons becomes fifteen , and then sixteen, and then seventeen they'll see how much progress they can make, and wont feel like a beginner any longer. Then as a parent you can use this experience to teach your older child other valuable life skills, such as investing for their future in a timely way. On their eighteenth birthday celebrate by taking them to visit a financial advisor to start a retirement account so they can plan to own their first home, or purchase their first new car.

Cynthia VanLandingham

Cynthia VanLandingham's Piano Adventure Bears Music Education Resources create an exciting musical adventure for children ages 5 to 11. Visit PianoAdventureBears.com for free samples of her Piano Adventure Story Books and piano resources for children. She is also the author of The Wonder Guide to Creativity.

Cynthia has been teaching piano in Tallahassee, Florida for 20 years and is the owner of TallyPiano & Keyboard Studios. She is a member of the American College of Musicians National Guild of Piano Teachers, the President of TallyPiano Enterprises, LLC, and a graduate of the Florida State University College of Education. Visit her website at TallyPiano.com to download her original, uplifting piano compositions, including "The Potter's Wheel." While you're there subscribe to her free internet newsletter, Piano Matters, and read the Wonder Guide to Creativity Online.

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