Dear Alma, My pupil’s parents are pestering me
OrchestrasDear Alma,
I am a private teacher and am having trouble managing the parents of a talented student. They contact me several times a week with specific technical questions, which takes a certain amount of time to respond to. They also come to the lesson (often both parents as well as the grandmother) and keep a steady string of comments going throughout the lesson, telling the student how to hold themselves, technical reprimands. It’s very difficult to teach the student and the family doesn’t get the hints that I am dropping. I like this student and they are doing very well.
Claustrophobic
Dear Claustrophobic,
This is not an uncommon occurrence for students under university age. The pushy, over-involved parents can make it difficult for both student and teacher. Stage parents are a unique breed, and they often are not aware that they are making your job difficult – they actually think they are being helpful! Keep this in mind and it will fend off the natural instinct to lose your temper.
Talk to the parents and describe the issues you are facing, and how the situation is making teaching difficult for you. Be clear and calm. State that you alone will be speaking to the student in the lesson, and if the parent has any questions, you can answer them at the beginning or end of the lesson. If they have questions, they will be answered during the lesson time, not during the week by email or phone. In addition, only one person besides the student is allowed in the lesson.
If the family would like to be more involved, find ways that they can contribute outside of lessons (helping to organize studio recitals, baking cookies for a reception).
Claustrophobic, begin with these steps and hopefully you can find an optimistic and fruitful way to live forward together.
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
This advice seems a bit idealistic Alma. I’m *sure* these parents will just nod like lapdogs and not change to a different teacher. /s
I think that it would be better to just have a charge for 20 minutes of consultation time outside of lessons. The first three per year can be free so that it does not effect normal parents. With the comments in the lessons say that they are impeding the student’s progress by doing this and that for any chance of success they will need to be able to do some things independently- maybe you can get the part about only one parent at a time in a lesson to work. Ultimately to teach this student you will also have to teach the parents.
Either do as Alma quite reasonably suggests, or double your lesson fee. These kinds of parents do not respond to hints or suggestions. Tell them that they are not helping their child to progress at all. Imagine the torment they are inflicting on the child at home during practice! Poor kid will end up hating music.
I don’t find this a helpful advice – if the teacher start to be snarky, they will for sure leave for another teacher!
Yes, and?
It really amazes me that people would pay a lot of money for a teacher then interrupt and teach the kid themselves!
Haha, yes you are absolutely right! Crazy..! But there are some parents that just can’t shut up and patiently listen, they always know everything best and everything must go only their way
Parents such as these are truly a challenge, because they live vicariously through their children. It is really not their own child’s success they are seeking — it is their own, mediated through the child, whom they expect to accomplish their own unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. Would they be responsive to the idea that what they are doing is counter-productive, unhealthy, and inappropriate — and that being pushy and putting constant pressure on a child does not in any way constitute any sort of credential for teaching a difficult instrument? Possibly — but I personally doubt it, and conveying such an idea without their becoming offended won’t be easy. Through their behavior, the parents are only showing their complete lack of maturity. The greater issue, of course, is that this inappropriate intrusion into a teacher’s role may be indicative of a greater dynamic, which I’m afraid does not bode very well for the child — who, I would imagine, will at some point, when reaching adulthood, reject them completely and may in fact literally have to do so, in order to be able to live a truly independent life.
How is one student “they” as in “I like this student and they are doing very well”? Given the references to the family as “they,” it all seems grammatically confusing. If this is woke-speak, you can see the problems this lunacy engenders.
My guess is that the teacher does not want to disclose the sex of the student. Nothing wrong with that. And I think the use of ‘they’ in this situation is also grammatically correct, but I am not a native speaker.
Take it from one who is, and who works with language for a living, it is not grammatically correct.
Simple solution, if revealing the student’s sex is an issue: “I like this student, who is doing very well.”
I understood that “Singular ‘they’ is used instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’ to refer to a person whose sex is not mentioned or is unknown.”.
But of course I may be wrong and in this case the use of ‘they’ may be incorrect.
For clarity, I don’t like it either as I too find it confusing. I was just wondering whether the use was appropriate.
This construction always puts me in mind of what a character says in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Gaudy Night: “I can’t think why fancy religions should have such a ghastly effect on one’s grammar.”
Substitute woke-think for fancy religions and you have this nonsense.
Colloquially, conversationally, people used to use “they” instead of the more cumbersome — but correct (and in this instance inapplicable) “he/she.” But that did not, and does not, make it correct. Check any grammar book.
This thread goes a long way towards showing why the UK is a million miles behind the Far East and Eastern Europe in training talented children. In order for children to make the best possible progress, parents need to be an integral part of the process. We usually only have one lesson a week with the child – the rest of the week the practice supervision falls onto the parent. When I teach especially young children, I teach the parent as much as I teach the child. Granted, some parents are brilliant and some can be tricky but, in my very extensive experience, the quality of parental practice support is one of the biggest predictors of progress. But honestly, nothing makes me happier than seeing a parent correct a droopy arm before I’ve even uttered the words, because it means I’ve done my job well and I know they’ve understood what needs doing. Success happens when teacher, parent and student work as a team!
Absolutely. I attended my daughter’s lessons and was able to help her quality of practice a great deal, despite my not having any related instrumental experience. She made great progress and loved it. Then she went off to board at a specialist music school from Year 6 and had a fraction of the practice time and just 15 minutes of supervision a week. Inevitably, technique deteriorated and with it her progress and satisfaction. Unsurprisingly, day pupils do better. Carefully supervised practice is essential, particularly for young children.
One of my friends attended all his granddaughter’s violin lessons. He was a violinist ( amateur) but he did not talk to the teacher without being invited to do so or ask questions. He left that for the granddaughter to do. The benefit was that he remembered a lot and his granddaughter could consult him between lessons. If the chauffeur/ caregiver takes up time they should be billed for it.