Okay - so after two years of trying to teach my oldest daughter to play the piano without any success I finally caved and am paying a piano teacher. It has been working out great because she likes it, I am no longer involved and she has some accountability to practice ( i guess I don't count as accountability) HOWEVER - what am I supposed to do when this happens:
Me - do you need any help? ( after hearing her teacher say at the last lesson that she need to ask me for help if she needed it)
B - No
Me - okay ( and go to my room to finish folding laundry)
5 min later
B - MMMMOOOOMMMMM!!!!!
Me - do you need help?
B - YYEEEESSSS!!!!
Me - you can keep the beat by counting 4 : 1...2...3..
B- I DONT WANT TO COUNT TO FOUR!!!! I DONT NEED YOUR HELP!!!!
Me- (dont say a word just walk away)
30 sec later
B- MMMMMOOOOMMM - I NEED HELP!!!!!!!
Me- ( sit down next to her) how do you want me to help you?
B- I DONT KNOW -
Me - (start to play the song so she knows what it sounds like , w/o counting)
B- I DONT WANT TO HEAR YOU PLAY THE SONG - (and covers her ears)
Me - okay - you dont have to play it fast, you can start slow and then get faster after you learn it
B- I DONT WANT TO!!!
Me - ( now I am getting frustrated so I leave - again)
Long story short: after 20 more minutes and a couple more back and forths and hearing her get more frustrated and start to take it out on the piano keys I suggest that she needs to go take a break and calm down and she has a complete meltdown complete with doors slamming, hitting walls and shutters, arm slapping( her slapping mine as I close the piano)and yelling. So now she is sitting outside until she decides that she can be respectful to me and the house ( Can you tell I'm still frustrated)
Ending - she just opened the back door and said " Mom I am ready"
Me - Can you be respectful to me and the house?
B- (says nothing - just gives me the mad eye look and slams the door)
Uuummmm - Okay- so now what?
Kewpie
2 days ago
6 comments:
Wow, is this what I have to look forward to? Poor girl, it can be hard to learn how to play an instrument, but she will be grateful later on. You are a wonderful and extremely patient mom Nicole!
Hahaha. Sorry to laugh in your moment of frustration, but I totally watched this go down in my head! oh how I live my Bailee! All the drama included! Dont you want another baby??
Wow...looks like shes hitting those tweener years early! I would have been frustrated too. Im a bad mom though cause I would have given her a good spankin.:) You are a good mom Nicole.Hang in there!
I don't have a comment, only to let you know that I really did laugh out loud (because I have a daughter close to the same age)
She wants to take piano....rrrriiiigghhhht.
Love ya, Nicole. Just hang in there, it's all we can do some days!!
I guess I am a little relieved to find out I'm not the only mom who doesn't know what to do with kid melt downs sometimes. Good luck and keep it up, I think you did well in handling it.
LOL! That was great. So our kids aren't the only ones. :) (Must be a family gene) I can see exactly what that looked like. Actually, I remember you being like that when you were entering college, the "I don't know" part. JK.
What else can you do? She feels pressured because mom already knows it and yet she knows she can't do it yet.
Have you tried not helping her for a week? That might help her see it's OK for mom to help. I did that with Tyler once...it seemed to help. Then I told him how crummy I was when I was his age and that he's doing better than I was. Except we were discussing math.
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