Balancing Music With Other Activities: Finding the Right Amount of Practice Time

It can be challenging as a parent to help your child navigate all of their interests and activities. 

We know that music is a valuable activity. 

There have been many studies done that show that music is beneficial in so many ways from enhancing language development, increased listening skills, and higher standardized test scores. Additionally, music cultivates social skills like collaboration and teamwork. Lastly, how about the simple joy and wonder of creating a work of art and bringing something musical to life? No doubt music is beneficial to child development, but how do we as parents help our children balance music with their other activities?

In this blog, we will discuss some practical ways to help your child balance music with their other activities and commitments. 

Create A Schedule

First, help your child to develop a practice schedule that will work for them and your family. Find some time, even if it’s a short amount of time, that could be devoted to music practice and commit to it each week. 

Consider having a weekly calendar that is visible to the whole family that includes your child’s practice time scheduled in. This will help ensure that they keep their commitment to music amidst their other activities. 

Managing Time Wisely

In order to be efficient and help your child use their time wisely when practicing, help them to set goals for their practice sessions. Setting clear goals for what to work on will keep your child focused and productive and will make practice worthwhile. Additionally, break your child’s practice time down into smaller increments to make it more manageable when navigating several activities a week. 

Develop Habits

In James Clear’s best selling book, Atomic Habits, he outlines a plethora of ways to develop a new habit. Clear writes about a strategy called “habit stacking” which works by connecting a new habit with one that you already do. For our children, it might look like this: 

After your child gets home and has their snack, they go and play piano for five minutes. Here is another example, after they brush their teeth in the morning, they practice for ten minutes, then go to school. 

Find a way to make music a part of your child’s routine by linking practice with habits that they already keep consistently at home.

Make It Enjoyable

Lastly, help your child to want to practice and find time to improve their music making by making it an enjoyable experience for them. They may have music they need to practice for their lessons or for school, but consider asking them what songs they might like to play to increase their desire to want to play during a busy week.

Conclusion

Children’s schedules can be busy.

 It can be challenging to help them find time to practice each week. No doubt - music is a valuable pursuit and by creating a schedule, managing practice time wisely, setting goals, habit stacking, and making practice enjoyable - music can fit into your child’s busy schedule with a bit of thought and effort.