How parents can support their little pianists
The parent's role
You already gave your child a great educational opportunity by letting them learn an instrument. Now it's time to support their progress. Let's see why and how.
Why
Music education has been proven to be an excellent way to achieve children's full intellectual, social and creative potential. Some of the benefits are:
Improvement of the cognitive abilities
Development of communication and social skills
Increased creativity and concentration
Enhance in the ability to express emotions
Increased IQ
In particular, playing the piano involves continuous communication between the two hemispheres of our brain, making the structure of players' brains different from other people's. This means that pianists improve their skills in problem solving, languages, decision making and social behavior.
To let this educational miracle happen, parents are crucial, as they can actually help their children during the practice sessions.
How
During the piano lesson, we set up some homework, so that during the week the child keeps reinforcing what he/she has learned. As a parent, you can help your child remember what to do and make sure that a little practice is done every day. To do so there are some aspects of piano practice that you can improve with your supervision. You could:
Remove all distractions
Increase consistency
Keep it enjoyable
The first point "Remove all distractions" is important to let the child focus during the practice session. When they sit at the piano, let this be a special moment of the day. Show your interest and set up a few rules, such as "during the practice session (15/20 minutes) everybody should leave the piano room and be quiet".
The second point "Increase consistency" is important to let the child develop a good habit: practising every day. If you can keep your child's piano practice at the same time and place every day, in a little while it will become spontaneous.
The third and last point is "Keep it enjoyable". This simply means that we educators should do our best to help children feel comfortable while learning. For example, regarding their practice, I recommend a 15/20 minutes session every day, but, in the end, the important thing is to achieve a result. It's better to tell them "play this song until you feel confident" rather than "play it for 20 minutes".
Dear parents, I really hope you find these suggestions useful and please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences!