By Edmund Sprunger
Years ago, the radiant and insightful Suzuki violin teacher Alice Joy Lewis pointed out that we need to speak to parents in the same positive spirit in which we speak to their children. It’s not helpful if we praise a child with “You did a marvelous job with all of the bowings in Minuet One,” then belittle the parent with “Why is she still having trouble with the difference between the C-sharps and C-naturals?”
It can be easy to fall into the trap of nurturing children by love, but leaving parents to fend for themselves. Nevertheless, the children who we want to nurture come attached to parents, and parents are in their own phase of development that needs nurturing by love. Parents are growing into their roles as parents. They often find themselves re-thinking, re-experiencing, and re-evaluating their own childhoods as they shape themselves into the parents they want to be for their children. They are often guessing as best they can.
This series of articles revisits the concept of nurturing on each side of the triangle. The first article, which appeared in ASJ vol. 53 no. 2, looked at ways in which teachers nurture themselves. Here, I’ll switch the focus to ways teachers can nurture parents in their development as parents, in general, and as Suzuki parents, in specific.
The Ongoing Enterprise of Nurturing Parents
Like their developing children, developing parents have a lot on their minds. They think about the well-being of their children a great deal, and most of the parents that I work with have careers outside of the home. They worry when they find themselves arguing with their children about things like the bow hand. They want their children to have music lessons, but they don’t want to spend those thirty minutes between dinner and bedtime in a conflict about practicing. And that may be just for their child in Suzuki lessons. There might also be a dance recital costume, a sports equipment purchase, and a spreadsheet their boss wants at 09:00.
In the midst of all of this, they may have forgotten something you explained to them very clearly and that they seemed to understand. Treating these moments as a demonstration of a parent’s full plate will be more helpful than interpreting them as a parent dismissing your work, challenging your authority, or just generally disrespecting you. Jumping to those conclusions is, usually, too complicated. Your awareness of a parent’s basic struggles will help you avoid taking it personally.
For example, an eleven-year-old who recently transferred into my studio demonstrated many strengths in her playing. Tone production was not one of them. I realized that it was because her bow hand was not connected to the bow. It was as if she had electricity and the latest iPhone, but had no way to connect the two, so the device remained dead.
With all the typical good cheer of first lessons, I showed her and her father how to create a bow hand, I watched them practice it, and I showed the father the page in my book Building Violin Skills that had all of the instructions along with the clear photos I had selected—among hundreds—for the book. I then asked the father if he had any questions. “Nope, thanks!” was the reply.
When they came back the next week, crucial pieces of the process were missing, so I went over the entire thing with them again. It took several lessons until they really had it down.
In these kinds of situations when we can be tempted to wonder if children and their parents are taking us seriously, it helps to remember that what we’re doing is simple for us, but complicated for newbies. It’s simple for us because we know these things in a very deep way.
In this case, it would have been easy to assume that they didn’t care about what I was teaching, or that they didn’t believe me. And I would have been wrong. I’m delighted to report that things are progressing beautifully with this student.
It just goes to show that there’s not one spectacular lesson you teach or a magical thing you say that makes it all work. Instead, nurturing Suzuki parents is an ongoing enterprise. A parent can be working well with their child, and then the child grows and the parent needs to grow as well, in order to be the parent this new child needs.
Building Alliances and Building Skills
With beginning students and parents, I find it extremely helpful to meet with the parents alone before starting lessons with the child. I aim to accomplish two crucial things in these first classes: 1) establish an alliance with the parents, and 2) give them the fundamental skills and knowledge they will need in order to grow with their child.
An alliance with the parent is essential in Suzuki lessons. It’s created not so much by what I tell them, but by what they tell me. I listen. I find that the best place to start these parent classes is by asking them what they want for themselves and their children. I also want to find out what their own experiences with music lessons have been, because I know that this is the template in their minds for music lessons. I want to let them know the ways in which I imagine our work will be similar to and different from their past experiences.
Typically, parents want their children to develop well and they want their children to have childhoods that go smoothly—which, of course, also means that they want their “parenthoods” to go smoothly. It’s not too much of a stretch to think that these parents can recognize that when things don’t go smoothly, they would like for their children to be able to manage the rough seas and to learn—through experience and support—how to navigate challenges.
Once I’ve noted what matters to parents, I move on to teaching them skills such as how to rub the Variation A rhythm on their arms, how to say “Wait! Wait! Ready! Go!” with a steady beat, and how to make a bow hand. In the process of teaching these skills, I can talk about typical challenges that happen with practicing these skills and how to overcome them.
For myself, I make a special point of addressing the issues that have caused the most tensions with parents over the years. Since I don’t yet know these parents, I can talk about these things before they become problems, demonstrating that things can be talked about and that I keep in mind typical things that concern parents.
For example, I might say “You’re probably not the kind of parent who would be concerned about this, but many parents are, so I want to let you know that I really don’t care how fast my students go through the repertoire.” I go on to talk about how the speed of piece acquisition doesn’t really tell us how it’s all going to turn out. “People are different,” I typically say, “like those trees out there. I have no idea which one got tall first, but they’re all tall.”
Other issues that I like to talk about before they come up are parent concerns that I’m playing favorites and/or that I’m holding a child back. “You don’t know me yet, so you have no reason to trust me, but I know myself; and I know that I don’t do those things. But if you feel like I’m doing them, we can talk.”
Overall, these first meetings with parents are a chance to form an alliance with parents and to begin to develop their skills without having to rely on quick, enigmatic asides that I make during lessons, or pressured chats when a child steps out to the bathroom. I find that I spend less time crossing my fingers that the parent grasped the importance of what I just said.
Understanding Interruptions
Although I go over why it’s important for the parent to remain silent at lessons, there is still the occasional parent who will blurt something out at a lesson. At those moments, if we ask ourselves “Why does this parent need to interrupt now?” we will be asking the right question.
There’s not one answer to that question. It’s generally safe to assume that parents have a lot on their minds and that interruptions typically have something to do with anxiety. For some parents it’s a concern that they, themselves, will be judged negatively for their child’s lack of an answer, or for some perceived defect in their child’s performance. In other cases, they might feel that their child’s performance will more accurately reflect the work they’ve done at home if they offer their child a reminder—and they will then get more out of the lesson and make faster progress. They don’t realize that the interruption, itself, inhibits the speed of progress.
Rarely is the interruption caused by anxiety about the teacher’s competence, and even more rarely do parents interrupt because they want to make our job more difficult. Even though interruptions can feel quite jolting to us.
I find that one of the best ways to avoid having parents interrupt is by how I handle the beginning of every single lesson. After chit-chat, tuning, and a bow—always in that order—I ask the child something such as “What would you like to get to today?” or “Do you have any questions?” I then turn to the parent and ask something like “Any questions?” or “How did practice go this week?”
At this point, I can get good information about when I’ll need to check in with the parent again during the lesson, and the reliability of this format helps parents to know that I am taking them into consideration. All of this tends to have a calming effect that diminishes interruptions.
If a parent still intrudes during a lesson, there is no single way to handle it, but it is common for me to either completely ignore the parent or to dismiss the comment with something like “hang on,” in favor of listening to the child. As soon as possible, though, I will stop what we were doing and turn to the parent: “You had something you were saying while he was playing.”
I take them seriously. I don’t know what the parent will say, but I usually go with it. For example, if the parent were to say “I was telling him not to rush,” I’ll say something along the lines of “Oh, so you were concerned about the rushing. What about that bothers you?” From there, I may work with the parent a bit more, or I may save it for later.
The parent needs nurturing in these situations. Too often, we want to dismiss the parent ASAP, so we can get back to nurturing the child. The parent’s genuine need for my attention can make a lesson challenging with a young child, because waiting while the adults are talking is unpleasant for children, especially between the ages of, roughly, four to six.
What parents often do not need from me is an explanation, but in the early years of my teaching, I made the mistake of thinking that they did. I might tell them how a beginner’s tapping fingers on the fingerboard paved the way for vibrato, or how I thought of playing Suzuki’s “Perpetual Motion,” as “Baby Galamian,” because a typical first summer studying with the famed violin pedagogue Ivan Galamian was restricted to playing the A Major Scale martelé, which is kind of what “Perpetual Motion” is. This comment, in turn, might lead to talking about superstar violinists who studied with Galamian. At other times, I might talk about the connections between the work we were doing and later pieces in the Suzuki repertoire; connections which Suzuki-Sensei showed me when I studied with him in Japan.
I’m always prepared to give an explanation—and happy to do so—but at some point I began to notice that I had been giving explanations for myself. I was processing something out loud for myself, or I was trying to justify the validity of what I was saying by bringing authorities like Galamian and Suzuki into the room. Now, however, in spite of the fact that there is a great deal going through my mind in a lesson, not much of it comes out of my mouth, because I think that neither the child nor the parent can make use of it. I focus more on giving clear instructions that produce noticeable results.
Watching Parents Practice
Though the instructions may seem clear to me, I find that it can be helpful to watch parents and children practice during the lesson. This practice can be as simple as “I’m going to tell you the name of each note in the A scale before you play it and then the next time, I’m going to have your mother tell you.” When all of that work is done, it’s easy to remember to say something to the child along the lines of “Great job waiting for your mom to say the note before you played it!” What’s a bit more difficult is to remember to turn to the mom and say “Excellent. It seems like you’ve got the hang of how to do this.” At other times, I’ll say to the parent “You are doing everything you need to be doing. Keep doing it. Eventually it will all come together.” That maxim “Catch them doing something right,” applies to parents, too.
In spite of all of these efforts, there are still some parents who won’t practice, or won’t practice as much as I think they should. There are all kinds of reasons for this inaction, including a fear of practicing badly, a worry that they are imposing “suffering” on their child, or difficulty catching on to the value of practice. In certain cases, it can help to have them limit their home practice to things that go well for them. If there is something challenging or argument-inducing, I can practice it with the child at lessons until the charge on it wears off and the parent and child can do it at home. Often, it’s exactly the break a parent needs.
More and more, I feel that if parents and children are showing up for lessons, there is something that they are valuing and appreciating. We may not always know what it is. I’m becoming increasingly alarmed when I hear teachers talk about “firing” students and parents. Letting go of a student and parent should be a thoughtful process and not an impulsive firing. It’s certainly not a badge of honor.
Unfortunately, some parents had children before they were psychologically ready to have children. Another way of saying this is that parents, to be effective, don’t have to have their own internal struggles completely sorted out, but they do need to be ready to put their children’s concerns first. The process of taking Suzuki lessons may help a parent develop some of these skills; or it may exacerbate the problems. It’s worth keeping an eye on the tilt.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that there is a very small number of parents—students, too—who succeed by failing. These parents are having such challenges being a parent and such grave difficulties practicing with their children that they need to save face by having their child fail. They want practicing to be a problem that can’t be solved so that they can say “He’s just that way,” which is easier than saying “I can’t make it work.” For these parents, the fact that you work well with their child lands as a tremendous insult because you can do something they can’t. Rather than generating inspiration and motivation for them, lessons generate jealousy and envy. I want to emphasize that this situation may not at all be caused by what the teacher brings to the lesson, but by what the parent brings.
If a parent can’t work with a teacher in a collegial, collaborative way, then that likely says a lot about the personality structure of that parent, and is outside of the work of the violin teacher. The idea that every teacher has to be successful with every parent is a myth. We are not omnipotent.
Cultivating a Nurturing Environment for Parents
Up to this point, I’ve mostly mentioned ways of nurturing the parent at the individual lesson, but there are ways that the larger program can nurture parents. One of the primary ways is by giving parents contact with one another. There are various ways I have done this over the years. I’ve sent parents to another room—with a box of chocolates—to chat with one another about practicing. I’ve had sign-up sheets for parents to perform various tasks for concerts, such as setting up, organizing refreshments, and cleaning up. It’s not that I can’t do these things as much as that parents need contact with other parents. I’ve also organized “Pie for Parents,” in which I bake a couple of pies and host an open house “just for parents” where they can talk with one another.
Conclusion
Teachers may find it helpful to think about what they may be providing outside of “music.” At the beginning of this article, I mentioned that parents are in their own phase of development. Later, I discussed the benefits of meeting with parents of beginners before their children start lessons so that the parents have “the fundamental skills and knowledge they will need in order to grow with their child.”
Approaching lessons with the idea of nurturing the parent by love as much as the child is an important part of the overall success of our endeavors. In this brief article, I have offered suggestions for ways in which teachers can nurture the parents of the children they work with. In the next, and final, installment of this series, I’ll write about ways teachers can apply the “nurture by love” concept to their work with children.
Note
In this article, I have written about the “parent” point in the Suzuki triangle knowing that there are many students whose practice partner is not a “parent,” but a “caretaker.” I think of a caretaker as a nanny, grandparent, or other helpful adult in the child’s life who helps accomplish specific tasks such as practicing or getting to lessons. People in these “caretaker” roles have a different function in the child’s life than a “parent.” The distinctions could be the subject of another article, but I wanted to add this note to clarify that I don’t wish to diminish the importance and usefulness of “caretakers,” but to speak from the perspective of children, whose experiences of “caretakers” is different from their experience of “parents.” The question is the function the person is playing and not just their position. People who are technically “grandparents,” for example, sometimes find themselves serving as “parents.” In a nutshell, a “caretaker” is not a child’s primary attachment; a “parent” is. The difference matters.