Girls That Create
Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on InstagramFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on YouTube
  • Parenting Resources
    • Teens
    • Pre-Teen
    • Elementary
    • Preschool
    • Toddler
    • Baby
  • Creator Spotlights
  • Inspiration
  • Explore
  • Support Us
  • Store
  • About Us
    • Collaborations and Press
    • Job Opportunities
    • Privacy Policy
Part One of Two Author Jessica Lahey: Music to My Ears

Part One of Two Author Jessica Lahey: Music to My Ears

As parents, it’s hard not to feel excitement when your child begins to show interest in a creative outlet. And it becomes even harder to mask that enthusiasm when the same child shows they have a talent for the activity. But how do you react when they walk in one day and proclaim it’s been fun, but now they’d like to give it up? What are the next steps for supporting your creative child? 

In her newsletter, author Jessica Lahey shares personal parenting experiences with her sons and their relationship to music. I found these essays both engaging and powerful reminders of how we as parents can successfully support our children as they uncover their creative passions. Lahey has graciously allowed Girls That Create to repost her work. Below is part one of two (click here to read part two).

Music to My Ears

One of the questions I get from parents a lot is, “Should I let my kid quit [insert activity here]?”

My answer is always, “That depends on your family’s priorities.” I know, it sounds like a cop out, but it’s not, I promise.

Let me tell you a story.

When my oldest son, Ben, was 13, I decided it would be a great idea for him to take piano. Learning benefits, crossover to mathematical thinking, all that jazz. Luckily, my next-door neighbor up the hill (this will prove to be an important detail) had just launched her last kid and was downsizing and clearing out. She offered us the upright piano she and her husband had purchased for their three kids’ lessons.

“Oh,” I did not know they played piano,“ I said.

“They don’t,” she said, and rolled her eyes.

Undeterred, I asked some friends to help us get the piano out of the house next door and roll it downhill, into our house. Ben began taking lessons from a local music teacher, and for a while, all was good in the Lahey home. He was excited about this new adventure, and practiced dutifully.

Two weeks in the honeymoon ended, and we embarked on a new routine: nag, complain, nag, complain, angrily practice out of spite, stomp upstairs, repeat.

Annoyance rapidly became to anger, and that piano morphed from an innocuous addition to our tiny house into an ominous agent of malice.

Ben and I talked about why he wanted to quit (it was boring, and he wanted to be outside with his friends), why he started in the first place (he wanted to be able to play an instrument other than saxophone), and how serious he was about quitting (very). I told him I was not willing to sacrifice our relationship over a musical instrument, he said he felt the same, and that was that.

We rolled that piano back out of our house and headed downhill again, this time to different neighbor’s home, where a well-intended and hopeful couple lived with their two young and unsuspecting children.

Cut to a year or so later.

Guitar Lessons

Ben started fiddling around with my husband Tim’s guitar and I had always wanted to take lessons, so we signed up with a local guitar teacher.

We did well for about five lessons. Well, Ben and his very plastic fourteen year-old brain did well. I found the whole endeavor exquisitely frustrating and humiliating because I learned so much slower than Ben. He was rocking out to Eric Clapton’s “Layla” while I struggled to execute all three chords of Fleetwood Mac’s “Secondhand News.”

Around two months in, Ben realized something important.

He never hated piano, he hated lessons.

He did not hate practicing, either. He hated being told to practice, he hated the obligation of practicing songs he did not choose, according to someone else’s schedule and someone else’s rules.

We let our guitar teacher know Ben would not be continuing with his lessons, and signed up for Jamplay, an online guitar lesson subscription service with tons of teachers, musical styles, and pacing to choose from. Ben could skip ahead, repeat lessons, and progressed according to his pace, his choice. He loved it.

For the next couple of years, Ben played constantly. Played, not practiced.

He took that battered old guitar into the woods, to school, to the dinner table and even to bed.

After about a year, he walked into the kitchen while I was making dinner and asked, “Um, if you see anyone selling a keyboard on the town listserv, I might be interested in giving piano another shot.”

To my credit, I was so calm. So casual. I’d learned some things, too.

“Happy to keep an eye out,” I said, hardly looking up from the food.

I submitted a “seeking keyboard” post to our local email listserv that very evening and less than a week later, Ben started practicing on our new (used) 88-key digital piano.

jessica-lahey

Musical Love

Ben’s 22 now, and while guitar is still his first musical love, he’s a competent piano player. He can bang out a song or two to impress his friends or satisfy an earworm, and that’s all he ever wanted.

If music played a larger role in our family, if it was an essential part of our lives or our work, I might have chosen to push harder when Ben was 13, insisting on those daily practice sessions.

But it doesn’t. We love music, and none of us aspire to life as a musician.*

Ben continues to play often, and we upgraded that old guitar for his birthday a few years later. When he visits home, the guitar comes with him, and he still likes to walk around, pacing the yard and even the wooded mountainside behind our house, strumming away.

He plays and he plays, and as long as I keep my wishes, my goals, and my mom-stink out of it, I think he’ll keep playing.

The research of psychologist Edward Deci explains our family’s experience perfectly. Extrinsic motivators and controls – my wishes, my goals, my mom-stink – do not promote long-term motivation, especially for creative endeavors. Worse, attempts to control or coerce undermine motivation and creativity. In other words, when we push, push, push our kids to do the things we want them to do, we all but guarantee they not want to do those things.

Not all aspects of parenting are optimized by inaction, but I know this: Ben has become a musician not because of my efforts, but in spite of them.

*Stay tuned. In my next missive, I’ll recount the tale of how my music-hating youngest child ended up considering a career in music production.

Love the kids you have, not the kids you wish you had.
Help them focus on the process, not the product.
Don’t predicate your love on their performance.
Aim for long term goals, not short term perfection.

Sending lots of love and support, because this s***’s hard.

jessica lahey

Jessica Lahey

Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
#AmWriting Podcast

First image by Clark Young on Unsplash
Second and third image provided by Lahey

More Girls That Create Posts

Author Jessica Lahey: How Do You Do Music?

Helping Kids Who Fear Failure

Kate Allan: Q&A With Author and Illustrator

March 22, 2022 epswriter

Recent Posts

  • Founder and CEO of The Broadway Podcast Network Dori Berinstein
  • Lin-Manuel Miranda Works With Sound It Out Campaign
  • Artist, Illustrator, Author, and Teacher Jennifer Orkin Lewis
  • How Movies Can Help Families Wrestle With Emotions
  • 10 Great Quotes From Women Drummers

Girls That Create Newsletter

Sign up below to receive a round-up of the latest posts each month, offers, and bonus tidbits.

Your email address will not be shared with any outside parties. You can always opt out at the bottom of newsletters or by contacting me.

Affiliate Links

Sections of this site allow you to purchase different products and services online provided by other merchants. Some of the links posted on Girls That Create are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, GTC will receive an affiliate commission. Thank you for supporting us!

Little Feminist: Subscription Box

Tea Children’s Clothes

Kids Art Supplies & Crafts

Kids Craft Kits

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
Copyright © 2022 girlsthatcreate.com. All rights reserved. | Sitemap