How Not To Teach Piano!

I don’t know what it is about me, but when I hear the following words I want to run for cover: Proverbs 31, quilting, sewing, “dinner waiting for him”, and… piano. Why would I have such a visceral reaction to such lovely things? Well, to be candid, it is because I feel these are areas where as a woman and homeschool mom like myself I should be proficient. However, I feel like in all these matters I fall much below the mark.

What is worse than the pressure that I have put on myself, is that I have passed this pressure down to my children. A  while back my daughter began her new Keepers of the Faith Club. It was time for us to make something “girly,” with fine motor skills, not my strong point, to say the least! I couldn’t run, but I wanted too! As we began, I was worried we weren’t keeping up with the other gals in the class. I kept having to ask a lot of questions, and soon began bullying my daughter with my eyes, with a “get to work” look. After all, we payed all this money for the beads, group, and we WERE GOING TO LEARN HOW TO MAKE JEWELRY whether she liked it or not! Great attitude, right?!

I have done the same thing with my son. Last year we signed up for online piano lessons. Although the teacher was lovely, I was a wreck. Pestering, badgering, making him do things he did not yet feel competent doing. To confess, I wanted so much to keep up with the “Jones,” to have my children in piano lessons, karate, you name it! Not to mention, piano lessons would be such a great thing to tell my public school teacher mother! “Mom, my son is the next Beethoven!” It was Beethoven that was the piano guy right? See, I don’t even know that! You see why this stuff stresses me out!

Well, as you can guess my constant badgering made my son who had begun his lessons with a natural a love for piano, soon to suffer from post traumatic piano/mom/stress syndrome. Sadly, we soon both wanted to stay as far away from that piano as possible!

But, there is hope! At our “Keepers” meeting I decided to take a different approach. Shall we say the one of “grace?” When it was time to learn..eek.. weaving, I kept a happy heart as we slowly worked together. We sat next to a ten year old girl, who in my eyes appeared nothing short of a genius. She gently guided us through the weaving motions! Yeah, we did it! Yes, I mean “we.” My daughter did not seem to want to do all the weaving. Call it exhaustion from doing things in the flesh, or maybe it was an epiphany, but this is how I handled it this time. I made sure my daughter knew how to do the basic weave, and then I pitched in weaving my heart out around a light up hula hoop. However, I think it was my daughter and my face that lit up that day the most! A regular Proverbs 31 family! I think we did a great job! And, best of all I kept my cool!

Wiser folks will tell you that kids (and even moms learn things at their own time and it doesn’t help to push before they are ready.) Anyway, who says we have to compete with the “Jones” anyway!

So, this time as the Lord leads, we might just begin piano again, when I mature a little more! It feels so much nicer to walk out my life in grace and in Him!

Evonne Mandella is a Jewish Christian Homeschooling Mom of two. She has a BA in Christian Education and has served as a Children’s Director of her Congregation. Her heart is to share the Love of Christ (Messiah) with families around the world! Her Workshops and curriculum resources can be found at http://www.currclick.com/product/73336/Family-Feast-Bible