APPLIES TO ALL CHILDREN !

The Suzuki Triangle - Good for All Students

This system of parent-teacher support for the student nurtures confidence and success, which in turn creates the desire to learn and "do more".

You and your child need to sit down together and schedule practice sessions into your daily routine. The more you turn practicing into a daily activity like "brushing your teeth", the less you have to "nag" your child to practice, resulting in less arguing and resentment. You want your child to assume as much responsibility as possible according to their age.

No one likes ultimatums, including your children. By allowing them to choose the time and length of the practice session, they feel they have a say in what's going on. A lot of fights about practicing have nothing to do with practicing at all. When other things are bothering children they feel that refusing to practice is the only thing they have control over. Please look in the Practice/Motivation page for more ideas.

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Older children usually do not like having their parents sit in at lesson or help them at home. If your child is agreeable, it would be helpful to stay for the entire lesson so you can assist them at home. Otherwise, stay for the first few lessons to become acquainted with what the student is doing. Then you can stop in 5 minutes early to lesson to learn what was done and what is expected at home.

This way parents can guide the practicing at home. Sometimes the student likes to keep practicing the easy songs and won't work on the new stuff. If this is the case, you need to encourage them to practice the new stuff until it too becomes easy like the old stuff. For more motivation ideas check the Practice/Motivation page.

Other times the student likes to "noodle around" and not practice anything in particular. Actually, experimentation and self composition is very important to the process of learning. You can use this as motivation to practice the "lesson stuff" first, and then have time for noodling.

Parents of very young children need to be at every lesson!
Your job is to take notes and participate at lesson. You will learn to hold the violin, press the piano keys, etc., so you can show your child at home. Basically, you are the teacher at home. You taught your child how to speak, hold a cup, use a fork, and now you will help them learn their instrument. Doing what your child needs to learn will help you teach your child at home. It will also give you some insight that it's not as easy to do as it looks!

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In essence you are the main teacher because you will be working with your child on a daily basis. At lesson, I will show you exactly what to do and how to do it at home. You do not need to be a musician to do this! You just need to be willing, patient, and enthusiastic with your child. Your job is to support, love and encourage your child.

Just remember back to when your child was first learning to speak. If they uttered any sound you responded with delight and amazement. You also encouraged your child to make more noises, which eventually turned into words, and then sentences. Image what would have happened if you responded angrily or annoyed? Your child would have kept silent and never would have learned to talk.

If you can apply this fundamental way of teaching to all of your child's learning, they will be more cooperative and easier to work with, and you might have fun in the process too!

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Parents need to watch what they sayhow they say things to their children. Positive reinforcement does not mean saying everything is great when it's not. It means rephrasing things in an encouraging way. An example would be "No, that's wrong!". A better way to say this would be "I can see you tried really hard! Now let's try it this way!". Phrasing it this way acknowledges the effort your child put forth and encourages them to try again without any feelings of failure or disappointment.

Just think about the different bosses you have had. Some of them you liked and others you couldn't stand. Usually the bosses you liked were encouraging, recognized your work and in general pleasant to be around. These people created a working environment that made you want to work. If you do the same for your child, they will be more primed to cooperate.

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It's okay to laugh during practice, don't be overly serious. I encourage this attitude! Some of the things my students do are really funny and we burst out laughing during lesson. As long as you're laughing with the student and not at them. I like to make mistakes because it shows my students that no one is perfect all of the time. They enjoy telling me what I did incorrectly! This shows me that they have absorbed what I have taught them. If you can have this attitude, practice sessions will be more enjoyable and even become a bonding experience.

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Dr. Suzuki came up with the Mother Tongue approach to learning in general. He noticed how easily children pick up their native language and wondered why. It was because babies are surrounded by that language. Japanese children learn Japanese because that's what everyone is speaking around them. French babies learn French, etc. It is just a given that the child will learn the language that is spoken around them.

The same goes for music. If music is part of the environment at home, children will absorb it the same way. First by listening to music, then with imitation, lots of repetition, playing around by singing and dancing, and very importantly receiving positive feedback for their attempts and performances.

Here are some wonderful items you can use for a musical environment at home.

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A really good article in the "Suzuki World Magazine-1983 " called "Psychology Helps" by Ruth Stern, explains the concept of doing one thing at a time. If someone rattles off a list of 10 things they want you to do, how many of these tasks do you think you'll complete? One? Two? Three, if you're lucky. Just having someone rattle off a long list will make your brain freeze up and not register anything let alone completing the whole list of tasks!

Wouldn't it be so much easier and nicer if the same person asked you to do one thing, let you do that one task, and then tell you if you did a good job when you're done? Or maybe help you fix whatever you couldn't do on your own, and then say thanks for helping. You'd feel good and confident about finishing that first task and charged to start the next one. Wouldn't it be great if everyone worked this way!

If you take this approach with your child, they will build confidence in that they can do new things. This way of learning is very effective and will create a desire in your child to "do more".

" Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."...Charles Mingus

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Now that the child has completed the task, they have to master it through repetition. You know when they have mastered the task when it becomes a habit and can do it correctly every time. Until your child can do this, there is no point in going on to the next step. Eg. Learning the color red. If your child says green once in a while at a red object, they have not mastered the concept of red.

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