I was in fifth grade when I told my mom I was done with piano lessons.

I don’t remember exactly how I said it — whether it came out dramatically after a rough practice session or as a carefully reasoned case I laid out at the dinner table — but I remember the feeling behind it. I was done. The joy had leaked out of it somewhere, and I couldn’t see a reason to keep going.

Here’s the thing, though. The real problem wasn’t piano. It was my teacher.

She had a habit of taking personal phone calls in the middle of my lessons. She insisted on full hour-long sessions that were genuinely hard for me to sit through at that age. And the music she chose never quite felt like mine — it didn’t challenge me in a way that felt exciting, and it didn’t give me anything to work toward. Without that forward momentum, practicing at home started feeling pointless too. If you’ve ever watched your child drag themselves to the piano bench like they’re headed to a dentist appointment, you know exactly what I mean. Continue reading “What to Do When Your Child Wants to Quit Piano Lessons”