Online Parent Handbook
What I'd like to accomplish with this page, long-term, is to create a file called "Parent Handbook" that you can download onto your computer. Until then, please feel free to cut-and-paste whatever text you find useful, or bookmark this page -- anything to help you guide your child along his or her musical journey.
Table of Contents
1. Payment Procedures
2. How to be a Good Piano Parent
3. Sickness and Vacation Policy
4. Safety
5. How to Help Me
1. Payment Procedures
Payment is due one of two ways. Either you prepay the entire term, or you break the bill for the term into equal payments (four payments in the fall, three in the winter, three in the spring). Whole-term payment is due anytime in the first month of the term. With the equal-payment option, I request a check each month sometime in between the 1st and the 10th of the month. You are delinquent (don't be delinquent, it's no fun for anyone) if we get to the 15th and I remain unpaid.
I will make exceptions in one case. If you pay week-by-week and are meticulous about it, AND that's the way we did things when we began years ago, consider yourself grandfathered into my old accounting system. Please continue to pay by the week if you desire, or convert to the term system if you find it attractive.
Either way, I feed my family with your checks (not literally), so I require on-time payment.
Any accounts more than a month past due will be charged an extra $25 fee. I pledge to remind you consistently (but graciously) when you have fallen behind in your payments. It's easy to forget. I am forgiving, up to a point.
I keep records of all payments received, so it's easy to have a conversation about any discrepancies. I just whip out the book and we see what happened, or didn't happen.
2. How to Be a Good Piano Parent
There are no "bad" piano parents: just good ones and under-performing ones. Here is what the good ones do.
A) Read my chicken scratches in your child's notebook. Yes, my handwriting is as awful as your average physician, so it may take two attempts to decipher, and you should feel free to call me if a sentence is illegible or unfinished, as might sometimes happen. Knowing your child's assignment is half the battle. This way you know if they are following instructions. It sounds simple, but many parents skip this crucial step.
B) Encourage practice. I do not assign unreasonable amounts of practice. I figure out how much each child needs to do to improve at a healthy pace, and I assign that much. It's a different amount for every student. It's also crucial that you provide some outside motivation for your child to reach the weekly practice goal. This may mean nagging him or her. It's worth it, and you can even make me the bad guy. You didn't assign the practice requirements -- I did. A good strategy to "nag" successfully goes like this: "John will be here in two days and he will be disappointed to see an incomplete practice log. Please get 20 more minutes done this evening and your lesson will go even better than usual."
FYI: You may have to say this every week. My mom sure did. In fact, she might have said something along those lines pretty much every day for a while, until I got the hang of it and sat down to practice BEFORE she could prod me along. She freely admits to nagging me. It doesn't seem to have ruined our relationship or my love for piano. This may not always be fun for the parent, and as the father of two young boys, I realize all too well the importance of picking your battles. So go ahead and pick them. Just make sure piano is one you fight when the time is right.
"But what if my child won't practice?" I get this one a lot. First thing to realize is that kids will have good weeks and bad weeks. Don't fret over one lousy week of practice, especially if piano is just one of many activities your child enjoys. But if it turns into a trend, if every single day you're pulling teeth to get that kid to the piano, then I have this advice for you.
1. Don't give in right away. Persevere. She or he will thank you later.
2. Emphasize completion of assignments rather than reaching a semi-arbitrary number of minutes logged at the piano.
3. Institute your own reward system. Make a chart, and let your child earn a cool prize for 20 days of authentic practice in a given month.
4. Talk about frustration honestly with him or her. Maybe he or she is really done with piano, or ready for a change, or just kind of wiped out. But maybe not.
5. Ask me for new materials to re-ignite interest. (This works.)
6. Take a break. Meet with me and we can set up a series of lessons that don't require practice in between. This is, of course, a stopgap measure.
7. Set up a deadline. "I respect your frustration, but we're going to do this until Christmas/spring break/June and then we'll talk again about piano."
C) Sit in on as many lessons as you can. The students who excel tend to have parents present at many lesson times. Once your child realizes you care enough about their piano journey to spend that half hour or 45 minutes in the lesson, he or she will give an extra effort throughout the week. Now of course, if your presence makes your child exceedingly nervous, maybe you should observe from a distance. Pretend to balance your checkbook in the next room or something along those lines. Or stick around for just five minutes. Your investment of time in the lesson process pays gigantic dividends.
The single greatest predictor of student success is not talent. It is consistent parental involvement. I have had several students who overcame a lack of talent to thrive, and each time they have been buoyed by this three-pronged foundation: strong parental support, plenty of personal motivation, and my patient guidance.
D) Praise them for their progress whenever the occasion arises. But please remember to be patient -- sometimes it will take a couple of months before the incremental weekly progress adds up and you notice your child is playing with emotion, precision and dexterity all at once. Just find an excuse to say something like, "Wow, you've really worked hard on that piece for a while and it sounds fantastic. You're turning into a real piano player!" A genuine compliment like that will go farther than you ever thought it would.
Follow those four steps and watch your child excel.
3. Policy for Sickness and Vacation
A) Sick days: If your child is sick, I don't particularly want to be on hand to catch the sickness and spread it to all my other students. On the other hand, it's not OK for your child or for me to miss a lesson every month for health reasons. So I am glad to do the following:
- With 24 hours' notice: I will reschedule or cancel the lesson, at your discretion. My preference is always to get the lesson made up, either that coming weekend or by extending the following week's lesson if possible.
- With less than 24 hours' notice: I will cancel but I won't guarantee a make-up lesson. The reason: I schedule my day very precisely, with one lesson leading right into another one nearby. On the fly, it's not always feasible to squeeze in another lesson.
- With no notice: If I show up at your doorstep and discover you do not wish the lesson to take place for whatever reason, or if you're elsewhere, I will have to charge you for the lesson anyway. I'm sorry about this one, but I simply can't be making unecessary trips.
Naturally, emergency cases call for different solutions. I'm not completely heartless! :)
B) Vacation: We all need it. My yearly vacation consists of Christmas week and a month or so in the summer. I do not work at all those weeks. I need them to stay fresh for the rest of the year, and they tend to be rather unproductive weeks for most students anyway. I enjoy the time off and they should too. 52 lessons a year is not a wise idea. 40-45 lessons is pretty good.
If you have family vacations planned for times other than those weeks listed above, that's great! I'll adapt your child's curriculum to make sure he or she gets introduced to as many concepts and songs in 38 weeks as the kids who have a full schedule.
4. Safety
Lessons must not take place in your home if the student is completely unsupervised. By this I mean an adult or older sibling at least 16 years of age must be present, in the house, at lesson time. In today's society, I will not place myself in a position of being solely liable for your child's welfare. In the event that I arrive at your home to find a completely unsupervised child, no lesson will take place. A babysitter on hand is OK in some cases.
Thankfully, I have taught five years with no incidents involving children's safety or well-being. I intend to complete my career without experiencing such an unfortunate event.
5. How to Help Me
My business grows by word of mouth. I am grateful for all references and referrals. Of my 52 students, well over half came to me in this manner, and the rest found me through my advertising efforts. So please direct other interested parents to this site or to my cell number, 206-355-9306.
Sometime in this lifetime, I'll be gathering and publishing testimonials from parents who've been reasonably pleased with my performance. If you'd be willing to help me in that way, please e-mail me by clicking here and we'll get your kind words printed on this site.
Thank you. It is a privilege to work with your children, grandchildren and your own selves.
-John