I’ve only heard of a handful of kids who were excited to practice for their music lessons, and I’m not completely sure the stories were true.  When I was a music teacher my philosophy was simple.  If you didn’t practice, come anyway!  Likely you don’t remember what to practice after a week off and I’ll help you get started again.  I figured the one practice session a week with me was better than nothing.

At some point, however, a habit of never practicing really slows progress. I got tired of paying for lessons to hear my kids sound the same week in and week out.  And our music teachers didn’t all share my philosophy.  Often we spent half of the 30 minute lesson listening to a lecture on the importance of practice–and NOBODY wants to pay for that.

Music is important to me.  So important that I didn’t give my kids a choice of studying music, just like I wouldn’t let them opt out of math. We couldn’t afford lessons so when it was time to start, I took on a paper route to make music possible.  When I became too pregnant to deliver papers safely in icy weather, I started selling Mary Kay instead.  Then Darren lost his job, and we immediately suspended the lessons. Our teacher kindly offered to continue  in trade for my teaching his wife to sew.  I throw that out there just to say that there are ways to have music lessons even if your budget is tight. (I once had a voice student who paid in raw milk = awesome!)

Anyhoo, I finally got so tired of fighting the kids to practice that I announced they were paying for their own lessons.  Each instrument cost $60 a month and the 2 oldest study 2 instruments @ $120 a month.  My kids don’t make that kind of money, and if they did I’d rather them put it in a ROTH.

So, I offered to pay them $3 for a GOOD practice session.  I did not allow them to skip a lesson for not practicing and if they didn’t earn enough to pay for the lesson by practicing they had to come up with the money another way.   It worked.

That was over a year ago and now that we’ve been using this method for awhile, I’ve got some tips for you.  Make sure to get enough single bills at the beginning of the month so you can pay the kids as soon as they practice. It reinforces the behavior better if they get the immediate reward.  It feels weird to go to the bank and get that many ones. If it bothers you, you can trade the kids their ones for bigger bills on the way to the lesson, then use the same $1 bills every week.

I use a clipboard system to help the kids pay themselves when they practice.  Original post here. My biggest failure is forgetting to stock it each week :(.  That can make the whole system go bust.  We have our clipboards hung on the second floor outside their rooms and it would be better for me if they were some place I see all the time.  Out of sight, out of mind.  If you decide to try it, adjust the system to work for you.

There will come a time, when your child has to pay out of his own pocket. He will be sad.  You should be sad too.  Say things like, “Bummer, I’m so sorry this happened.” Look genuinely sad.  It will be hard to look sad, because this is the BEST thing that could be happening for the good of your child. Try to manage it anyway.

If they don’t have money, you can say, “I don’t know what you are going to do.”  Do not give him answers.  Do not bail him out. If he offers to work for the money, accept the offer. Make the job difficult enough that practice would have been better.   If they will be short with money going to the lesson, please (secretly) call the teacher ahead and ask for his help in making your child responsible.  You might offer to slip him the money (and possibly an extra tip) if he will make the child work the debt off.  It will only happen once (or twice if your child needs to test the limits a few times to feel secure.)

This is day 13 in our series 31 Days of Kids and Money