What Teen Students Wish You Knew
Do you have teenage students?
Congratulations that they’ve stuck with you! I’m especially thrilled when they get their driver’s licenses and drive themselves to lessons.
Do you notice that finding the perfect piece doesn’t guarantee that practice will happen?
Do you notice that although they want to make music and faithfully attend lessons, they may arrive unprepared, often distracted, and looking for someone (you!) to trust.
Are you sometimes puzzled about how to communicate with them?
Do you see what they do, and yet find it hard to connect with who they are?
Did you say yes to any of the above?
Would you value answers by a resource you can trust?
Then I highly recommend that you register for a workshop called “Teaching Teens: What Researchers, Therapists, and Teens Wish You Knew.
It’s given by my friend and colleague, Wendy Stevens of ComposeCreate.com. It offers the answers to these questions and countless more!
Enter the discount code teachingteensviss to get 15% off the recorded workshop
Why we need advice
This past week, three teens arrived for their individual piano lessons and shared their week of practice with me. The 16-year-old binged practiced over the weekend, the 18-year-old practiced a bit, and the 15-year-old confessed to not practicing.
All three have been taking lessons with me for years. The 16-year-old who “binged” is a devoted student from a rock-solid family who usually works diligently at the piano. He even sacrifices homework to fit in practice when life gets really busy—a dedicated and dream student for sure.
The other two are brilliant in specific ways–the 18-year-old can play anything by ear and loves improvising. The 16-year-old will dive deep, seriously deep, into theory and the science of sound. His knowledge bank often far surpasses my pay grade.
The teens are outstanding musicians yet prepare in vastly different ways for piano lessons. When the 15 and 18-year-old haven’t practiced, I could default to anger or contact the parents with questions:
What’s going on at home?
Can you please provide more structure?
How are you going to change things?
I learned in my early teaching days that anger only tanks a lesson, and generally, I avoid contacting parents about issues unless absolutely necessary. I know my families well enough to recognize they are already “fighting” enough battles and probably feel frustrated. It took a village of adults to help us raise our three sons. I’m eternally grateful for those who stepped in on behalf of our sons!
I have also learned, especially this year, that to rely on how “it’s been done in the past” is not a viable choice. Our son and daughter-in-law are raising our first granddaughter. I watch them with interest but offer little advice because caring properly for a baby is now based on the most recent research and data. Methods are remarkably different than 30 years ago!
So, how do I connect with these teens and nudge them to practice when I know threats and incentives won’t cut it?
My strategy is to trust my intuition after raising three sons and regularly seek out experts. Thankfully, advice from teen psychologists and therapists is readily accessible. I usually soak in advice from podcasts like Ask Lisa. Psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour is the author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers.
Why this workshop?
When I saw that Wendy was holding a workshop titled Teaching Teens: What Researchers, Therapists, and Teens Wish You Knew, I immediately knew that her topic choice was timely and the session would be of the highest quality. Even before she reached out to me about promoting the workshop, I couldn’t wait to listen in.
As expected, her workshop is extremely relevant and beneficial to piano teachers because she is a mom of three teens–giving her street cred! Wendy is also a composer of piano music for kids.
She works closely with piano teachers, and it’s clear that she made extraordinary efforts to gather information from several top experts in the field of teen psychology (including Lisa Damour). She even interviewed therapists!
What’s it about?
Wendy’s carefully curated data-driven presentation is conveniently packaged into a one-hour workshop and an equally powerful handout. You will want to watch it more than to catch all the valuable content:
What teens need the most (this will surprise you)
What we get wrong about teens
What they’re thinking but won’t tell you
How to get them to open up
Why the way you treat girls matters so much more than you can imagine
How to keep from being exasperated with teens
The reason reasons they often want to quit lessons as teenagers
Why we need to change the way we talk to teens
Why it’s Valuable
After absorbing Wendy's facts and advice, I felt validated in my approach with the three students I mentioned earlier. I also received some great tips and specific questions to ask when approaching them about their practice next week.
You will turn to the content of this workshop again and again.
Wendy has done a masterful job of transforming 6 months of research and interviews into something that will empower you in every exchange with your students for years to come.
“This is not your typical “10 Ways to Motivate Teens” or “Pop Music is the Answer” kind of workshop. Those nuggets are helpful but only go so far.
This workshop is about diving deep, about really understanding what’s happening in the emotional, physical, and social lives of teens. It’s about getting to know yourself and how your own experiences have shaped your perspectives on teens. And it’s about putting all this together in a way that will help you be a much better teacher, coach, parent, or even grandparent to teenagers.”
-Wendy Stevens
Yes, I get a small fee for spreading the word about this workshop. I agreed to write this post because I wholeheartedly recommend this workshop to YOU! It’s worth every penny.
Click on the button below to access Teaching Teens: What Researchers, Therapists, and Teens Wish You Knew
