Stopping the Morning Insanity

Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome.
~ Old Chinese Proverb

We have always started our day with breakfast, brushing teeth and hair, maybe a simple chore and then...piano. For the first three years since the Princess began piano lessons, we did the daily practice together, after all she had only just turned four years old when we began. We used a cute program called "Music for Little Mozarts." It was a fun time for us most mornings and eased us into the remainder of the day's lessons. Such sweet memories!

Even back then I rearranged the order of what lessons followed and even mixed them up from one day to the next, because random presentation works best with my daughter's learning style. However, piano has remained the first thing each morning for 4½ years and I am helping less than I did in the first years, but still supervising. Miss Trudy, her piano teacher, had been stressing that she needed to count for herself as the Princess' eighth birthday approached, just over six months ago. I also agreed it was time for her to be more self reliant and working on timing without as much help, although I do still help with that particularly when she is preparing a piece to be performed, so she can meet the deadline totally prepared.

However, I have a daughter who sees everything quite black and white, like the piano keys themselves. If her teacher tells her that I should not have to help her anymore...well, then she doesn't want me to help at all. (She is so much like I was!) So I would give her about 20-30 minutes to practice on her own, listening from a distance so that I knew where the trouble spots are and then I would help her identify the difficulty and smooth it out, planning for it to take just 15 minutes. Uh-oh! That means I am helping her and she would inform me, with authority, "Miss Trudy said I have to do it on my own," and then not cooperate with me at all.

Now Miss Trudy and I were friends before this little one was even a consideration, so that divide-and-conquer tactic is not going to work here with us. I have even called Miss Trudy a time or two to squash the argument so that my daughter would realize this. However, that did not stop her from dropping her hands from the piano and just sit there not practicing while I am sitting on the bench next to her. That quiet defiance! Those well thought out arguments with good use of logic and knowledge, but lacking of wisdom! That attitude! Yes, I remember being just like that and probably worse at her age. In some ways, it makes me laugh inside because it reminds me of me and in other ways it makes me sad because it reminds me that our relationship is changing as she is becoming more independent of me and most days it just frustrates me, although the mildness of that term only fits on the good days.

More days than not have become a struggle at the piano, so instead of spending 45-60 minutes, it becomes much longer and then followed by math, not her favorite subject, when we already have gotten off on the wrong foot. Most mornings are filled up with just piano and math alone squeezed in between the attitude adjustments that never really seem to solve the problem because it starts again in some varied degree the very next day. Every day we both braced ourselves as we went from breakfast with its hugs and kisses and conversation into the daily morning drama with the pouty face and crossed arms to end later in the day with apologies just before "can I go out and play now?"

On the mornings I did not help her with piano, we had much less drama and navigated the rest of her lessons more easily, but then she really was not pushing herself to get ready by the deadline for a performance. I also felt if piano was done later in the day that it would be given only a halfhearted effort by the both of us. Having prayed about this, how I don't want my daughter to push away from me in a manner that we might both regret should it continue, I think my Lord whispered the solution into my heart. She would practice on her own for a half an hour in the morning and then at the end of her lessons she runs through everything a few times working on the trouble spots usually for about 20 minutes in the afternoon, before she would go out to play, her big motivation for having absolutely no attitude while I help her.

We have tried this out the last two days and the difference is remarkable! We again have peaceful mornings with closeness. Even math is goes along more easily because I am not frustrated before we begin it, which was really concerning me as I used to tutor math and I know I have always enjoyed teaching it even with seriously struggling students.

This all goes to prove that my Lord has some pretty good advice He readily gives. Kind of makes me wonder why I don't ask for it more often.

~ My Lord, thank you for again opening my eyes to my quiet defiance, to my arguments, to my attitude of wanting to do it all my way without Your help. Thank you for showing me through this experience that You have a better plan for my daughter and for me than I could ever possibly have for either one of us. ~