Q. My seven-year-old started piano lessons about a month ago. She now says she’s not interested anymore and wants to quit. Do I let her quit or force it? We did buy a keyboard for her.

“This is the ageless question,” panelist Joanne Raftas began.

“It happened 25 years ago, and it will happen another 25 years from now. The lesson is about kids who get excited about things, and then leave them,” Raftas said.

“When I was a child. I’d do that,” panelist Wanda Mercado-Arroyo said, “but my parents would encourage me to stick with things. Later, I really appreciated that.”

“Seven-years-old is a hard age for sticking with things, and sometimes things get difficult, but you have to help them [the children] work through it,” said Raftas, adding, “It depends on how much the parents are willing to tolerate.”

Panelist Chad Stefanyak suggested setting ground rules ahead of time, including specifying a length of time for continuing a certain activity, after which the child can discuss whether she wants to continue or not.

Raftas gave a real-life example of her own when she was in fourth grade, and started taking guitar lessons on Saturday.

“I was doing great and my teacher was praising me,” Raftas said. “Then my best friend, who did everything very well, started taking lessons the hour before mine. The teacher started comparing me to her. He thought that would motivate me, but instead I lost interest.”

The point of the story, Raftas said that she was trying to make was that her parents let her quit, and she had wished that they would have asked her “Why?”

“Parents need to understand the ‘why,’ and help the child work through it,” said Raftas.

Panelist Pam Wallace said that letting the girl quit doesn’t teach the child anything about discipline or how to make good choices.

“Forcing her is also not the right approach to take, either, Raftas said.

“Children don’t always understand what’s involved and the effort needed to do something like taking piano lessons. A more positive approach would be to teach the child how to keep working at her lessons, and persevere, at least for an agreed-upon amount of time, said Raftas.

This week’s panel: Pam Wallace, program coordinator, Project Child, a program of Valley Youth House; Denise Continenza, extension educator; Joanne Raftas, Northampton Community College, independent counselor; Chad Stefanyak, school counselor, and Wanda Mercado-Arroyo, former teacher and school administrator.

Have a question? Email: projectchild@projectchildlv.org

The Family Project is a collaboration of the Lehigh Valley Press Focus section and Valley Youth House’s Project Child.

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