So THAT's what child-led means

E and I are having a disagreement about whether or not the kids should continue taking Suzuki Piano Lessons. Suzuki Method requires that I stay at the lesson, take notes and practice with the kids at home. Well, practices were going very badly. Actually, they were not happening at all because the kids didn't want to do them. E says its because I didn't want to do it and I am imposing my views on the kids. Now, if I didn't want to do it, why would I have found the teacher and signed them up in the first place? Just to sabotage it? Trust me, it is way too expensive to even consider that. What I didn't want was to have to fight the kids to practice. If they really wanted to learn piano, they would want to practice. E disagrees. He thinks that you need to get kids over the hard part so they can begin to enjoy it. His example is soccer. When the kids first started it was hard, but now they love it.

So, we decided to talk with the kids. Owen wasn't really excited about the lessons in the first place. He just wanted to take them because Bridget was taking them. When asked, he said straight up front that he did not want to take piano anymore at all. I asked him why he did his lesson today when I gave him the option not to do it. He said he didn't want Ms. Krista to feel bad. I mentioned to E prior to the conversation with the kids that I thought this was the case. The teacher spent Bridget's entire lesson telling her that Owen would have his lesson and get his turn. I encouraged Owen to stand up for what he wanted in the future and I would support him any way I could. He agreed and seemed much happier to have all of this off his chest. Bridget said she wanted to take piano lessons, but she liked the other lessons better. We had taken a week of sample lessons at a very expensive place before signing up for these lessons. So I asked her what she liked better (because going back to the other place was not an option). She knew right away. I liked being with all the other kids. Ahhh, are you seeing the light go on? She wanted group classes, not private lessons. I should have known. She is very social. I thought private lessons would be better because she would get more attention. I didn't think about it from her perspective. I thought about it from a learning perspective.

I think what E and I learned was that we need to talk to the kids and let them make the decisions about what and where they wanted to do things. That is what child-led means. We need to trust the children, ask the children and let them decide. I read this, I thought I was doing it, but apparently, I wasn't thinking about all the aspects of trusting the kids to know what they want. Hopefully this will save a lot of wasted money in the future. More importantly, we won't waste time and hurt the kids by forcing them to do what we think is best.