A little frustrated with myself

[Peepsqueak]

I am a little frustrated with myself because I am attempting to practice gentle discipline and in some areas it is very challenging. I have children ages 5,7, and 8 and I really attempt not to spank. I do not really remember the last time I used spanking for discipline.

For one thing, as most children do, they do not like to practice their violin and when it comes time to go to their lesson, I had to admit to the teacher they neglected their practicing. They are using the Suzuki method and have classes in their school curriculum. During the summer they have private lessons. I try not to be overbearing and want them to truly enjoy their violin practice...I even rent a violin myself to practice with them. Now they do not want me to practice with them and are very antagonistic when I try to encourage them to practice the things the teacher instructed. I get angry about it too and resent some of their friends they play with who do not have instruments to practice. I know I should not feel like this, but I am afraid they will want to stop playing and I feel that will be a mistake and they will regret not learning an instrument in the future.

Also, during bedtime they are up late because school is out. I am seriously considering putting them back on a bedtime schedule because it drives me nuts! They can stay up as late as 2-3 AM in the morning watching tv and playing playstation games, and the noise is terrible for me to sleep. They often squabble with each other too, so it is very disruptive. I keep them on a late schedule to help my mother in law who watches them during the day. They sleep until 1-2 PM which gives her less time to supervise them. She is older and I feel since she is helping us, I want to make it easier for her.

Anyway, I often am very tired and cranky during the week due to this. I work a full time job and run a petsitting business on the side. This means I am tired and do not get the quality time with my kids.

If anyone has any helpful suggestions I would greatly appreciate it.

[Mama2RMM]

There are many happy adults that do not play a musical instrument. It sounds like the music lessons need to go - they've become a control issue for you and your children.

The long standing rule from about 10 years and up was "bedtime" at x:xxPM and what that really meant was time to settle down. I was allowed to read, listen to music quietly, or play with anything in my room that was not loud. I was not disturbed, or told to go to bed - eventually I got the idea that sleep would be in my best interest as my Mom wasn't keen on the idea of sleeping late!

I would say no T.V. / gaming after a certain time and limit their activity to alone time in their own areas of the house.

[Chanley]

headphones.

that was the answer in my dh's family. Everyone used headphones from the tv to the stereo to the computer.
my FIL was a middle school music teacher....

he said to NEVER make kids learn an instrument, it makes them hate music. He told me that an adult who wanted to learn was 100 times easier to teach than a child who was being made to learn.

Go with the flow and ask them what they want to do. That said, I have a rule here, if we sign up for lessons, we agree to a set amount of time that we will take them. I do not sign my kids up for ANYTHING unless they want to. I really want my daughter to take gymnastics but she says she wants to wait until she is 5. I respect that. When she is ready, we are going to have an agreement that we will go to every lesson for 6 weeks and then evaluate if we want to continue.

[Sarihah]

I really appreciate the value that you are trying to provide for your children. My daughter was a very, very willful and headstrong child. I personally would not have attempted to force her to learn an instrument, but at the same time I can see that she would have benefited a great deal from the discipline.

STILL, she's a great human being and happy as a clam, and I couldn't ask for a better teenage experience than I have right now. (Knock on wood!)

[Peepsqueak]

Thanks for the suggestions. My children started violin as a part of their magnet school program. They chose the violin so they really enjoyed it at first. I think now that it is summer and the rest of their friends do not play music, they do not enjoy playing music anymore.

I never really intended to force them to play an instrument. I was raised to play the piano and quite frankly I didn't care for it. I played for 10 years and finally quit and never really show an interest in piano anymore; therefore I do not want this for my kids. Nowadays they have fun music teaching which is different from the punitive methods when I was growing up...

I think I may take them to a few concerts this summer, and get more tapes with violin playing so they will have more enthusiasm again....next year I hope to send them to a violin workshop in the summer, etc. They workshops really impress the children and are fun for them (I couldn't afford them and fit them into this year's schedule).

Anyway, I appreciate the suggestions and will keep them for future reference.

[Lacie]

frustrated

I'm sure you have good intentions, but it kind of sounds like your kids are raising themselves. No bedtime, no discipline, no structure, no rules - everything nice and gentle. The only thing you are insisting on is the violin lessons and then you are not even requiring them to practice, just show up for the lesson. I don't think that kind of parenting works very well, it's not really parenting, just babysitting.

I understand the bedtime problem, but you need to find more productive things for them to do all evening. Maybe give them educational DVDs to watch. Remember that if they have the choice between exciting bad stuff and less exctiting good stuff, they'll pick the bad stuff every time. Who is raising them in the evening? I assume you are sleeping? What kinds of problems does your mother have with them that she can't watch them in the mornings?

About the music lessons, I MADE my kids take lessons in violin and piano and I MADE them practice and they are thankful for it today. I treated practice as if skipping it were NOT AN OPTION. It was just like doing math - they had to do it and I encouraged them to do it asap, so that they could play the rest of the day. I had to remind them at first but not after the that. I NEVER have to remind the older ones now and they often just sit down at the piano and play. I must add that none of my kids begged me to learn an instrument and none are extremely talented. I just treated it like any other school subject and they learned it and once they were better at it they began to really like it.

I will say however, that if your kids are not musically inclined, piano is a better choice than violin. Violin is very difficult and not very rewarding for a long time. They will enjoy piano more.

Do you play games with your kids? Maybe you could make it an after dinner tradition to play a board game with your whole family. Or go for a walk every evening or something that includes you. Make a rule that there will be no computer games until later, so they don't keep whining about that and not wanting to do anything with you. You need to start building a relationship with your kids NOW, and that might mean you insist that they spent time with you. Eventually they will come around if you don't give up.

[mamaduck]

Hmm. My kids seem to invest themselves easily in the things they love and have a natural talent for. If they are not interested and don't want to practise, then my feeling is that it is not meant to be. KWIM? I would let the lessons go. Or maybe as a compromise, I would consider dropping them for the summer and picking back up in the fall when school starts.

With regard to bedtime -- I would set a time at which playstation and television are off limits. I can't imagine it is good for them to fill their heads with that stuff so late at night and god only knows what is even ON television that late. Why can they not read , draw, do puzzles, play board games, etc? You oculd even sit down as a family and create a list of constructive alternatives for after the tv goes off.

I can respect your reluctance to force a bedtime, but at the same time I worry about children that young being up late by themselves. I assume you are trying to sleep? Who supervises them? It seems to me that they need an alert adult keeping an eye on them and steering them toward constructive activities.

[Peepsqueak]

Good points....actually I am up as late as the children but resting. This is a temporary schedule to help my mil not have to supervise them too long while I am at work...they will sleep late, etc.

Actually the tv is blocked for inappropriate material, etc. Also the playstation games are monitored, but I feel much of it is not always good stimulus.

They have one more lesson left and they can take a break from violin if they want until school starts. I think the school does allow change in instruments if the kids want it at some point. My children are quite bright and learned violin quite well....they are at the top of their class and age group in violin. This is not due to pressure from me either....they may just be bored, however, the pieces are getting a little more difficult and they were so used to passing a piece every lesson, they get discouraged if they do not earn a pass badge every lesson. It is a lot more fun when they have other kids into violin around them.

I do like to encourage them to read daily and we read together at least 15 minutes every evening. My 8 year old reads short novels on his own. My dh also supervises the kids when he gets home from work (he gets home earlier than me and which is around 2 PM; the kids apparently wake up around 12:00 noon or 1 PM so my mil only has them up for about an hour, etc).

This is great for her but the pits for me.....I am pretty diligent about trying to keep the children on a reasonable schedule, but I thought this would be okay. Well it will need to change within a week. I am aware these are not ideal hours for children. However, it is needed for now until we have activities scheduled for them. They will be attending a short vacation bible school the last week of July and that should get them back on a "normal" schedule before school starts. (School starts here in mid August)