FAQ’s for Parents

As a long-time music teacher, I want to make it very clear right now: everyone should make music. It’s something that pretty much everyone enjoys and everyone is capable of on some level.

That being said, here are some indications you can look out for that will tell you if your child has a particular aptitude for music.

Does your child often sing along with music?

This is the most common way that young children engage with music, and it’s a great indication that they should take it a step further. When a child sings along or even makes up songs of their own, their brains are already showing a predisposition to expressive sound. Finding a music teacher and getting them started on the mechanics makes 100% sense for these kids.

Does your child naturally gravitate to instruments?

When a child, young or old, just can’t seem to keep away from any nearby instrument, that is a sure indication that they should get more of it. Many professional musicians’ stories start with, “When I was three years old I picked up a violin for the first time, and I was hooked from then on.”

Don’t dismiss this interest in instruments as something every kid will do. While that’s true on some level, if you find your child is fascinated especially with one instrument in particular, you can have a lot of confidence that getting them started with one of their own will be successful.

Is your child asking to learn music?

This may seem obvious. However, even this overt of a request can sometimes be ignored. I’ve had parents tell me before, “Our son has been asking for music lessons for a while, but I didn’t know if he really meant it.” The truth is, if your child has enough interest in music to ask to be involved, then music is for them.

Well, wonderful! Musicians with high energy make great music. If your child has a lot of energy, it’s best to seek out a music teacher who can see the incredible potential in that energy and who wants to work with you to harness and direct that energy into music making.

When you learn how to channel that energy, you and your child will have more fun with music than you can possibly imagine.

If this question worries you, it just means that you definitely want to put your child into music.

Constancy—that is, the human quality of being faithful and dependable—is a taught trait. While I often hear from parents that they don’t want to force their children to do music, there is a big difference between forcing a child to do something they don’t want to do and encouraging a child to weather a season of disinterest.

Remember, all life is seasonal. Humans are built to experience and to endure seasons of change. Seasons of excitement come like warm summer days; it’s easier to have fun in the warmth, and you can get a lot of things done. When winters come, you adapt to the cold and do things a little differently, knowing that the warmth will return. It won’t be winter forever.

Students who are excited about their music (or indeed, their sport, their writing project, or their hobby) are living in the warm glow of that enthusiasm. It’s easier in that season to work happily. When the winter of boredom, frustration, or lack of interest comes, a good music teacher will change the parameters; they might do more naturally interesting songs, decrease the work load, or change the activities in class or lessons.

This is why learning music is such a valuable experience. When a good music teacher guides a student through a dip in their interest, the student learns to endure that season and see it through instead of quitting and looking for another thing to pique their interest.

Well, wonderful! While performing is definitely something that most musicians do, it doesn’t have to be something that every musician does.

One of the most famous and influential piano players of the 20th century, Glenn Gould, quit performing in his early thirties. While he did do tours and performances in his twenties, his anxiety and performance nerves eventually got the better of him and he stopped performing live (Bazzana, 2005). He then spent all of his time and energy on a recording career. Because of this shift in his attention, the world was gifted with some of the best piano recordings of Bach.

There may be pressure from the outside for your student to perform, but you are the parent. As a music teacher and as a parent, I am confident saying that if the only thing holding your child back from pursuing music is the idea of performing, put them in anyway. They don’t have to perform to get a lot out of music. And who knows? Over time the idea of performing might become less daunting. A great teacher will work to diminish the fear of performance in their students over time, and when performance-shy students learn to face that fear, it has tremendous benefits for a lifetime.

If your child is a perfectionist, then you definitely want them to be in music. Nothing will temper the difficulties of perfectionism like learning to make music.

But be careful.

In a video by the fantastic author and researcher Dr. Becky Powell, she lays out the process of learning like this: “We . . . have [two states of being] . . . Not Knowing and Knowing. The space between Not Knowing something and Knowing something is really painful . . . especially if you’ve fashioned yourself to be someone who’s academically talented because then it almost feels as though your academic success or your identity as a smart person is tied to Knowing” (Dr. Becky on The Learning Space, 2025).

When I talk about a student being a perfectionist, I’m usually noticing that the student has a deep discomfort with the space between Not Knowing and Knowing. Before these kids are all the way to Knowing, the pain and discomfort they feel is very real. In music, there is a lot of Not Knowing—but that gives a music learner an amazing opportunity.

What a perfectionist child needs more than anything is to learn to fail well (see Chapter 7). Failing well means that you willingly engage with an activity that you know is going to require you to fail. You search out and find the joy in the failing process. Failing well means that you purposefully engage with the incredible discomfort of doing something badly until, over time and exposure, the pain begins to diminish.

That process takes a lot of guidance. Perfectionist students need an emotionally intelligent music teacher, so be even more diligent in making sure that you find the right teacher for this kind of child. Make sure you read the section in Chapter 4, “How do I find a good music teacher?”

This is an excellent question. My question back to you would be: Do they?

Often kids with “short” attention spans have no problem playing video games or doing something else they love for huge stretches of time. What these kinds of children usually have short attention spans for is anything they don’t feel really excited about.

That’s the good news about music. Making music is a naturally fun activity. Small babies will often “play” with expressive sound obsessively, making “Blah blah blah” or “Ma ma ma” (or more often, “Da da da”) sounds until a parent starts to yearn for peace and quiet. People who teach themselves instruments for fun tend to play obsessively just for the joy of the thing. And even people who don’t make music often listen to music constantly, usually as a mood or energy booster.

It’s only when music becomes an academic subject that it becomes cumbersome and tiring.

But there is a way to infuse the natural joy of music into the academic pursuit of playing an instrument. Once you’ve done that, the “short” attention span usually becomes a non-issue.

Don’t rule out the prospect of your child becoming a great music maker because they have trouble focusing sometimes. Music, learned in an emotionally intelligent environment that is supportive of the midbrain and understanding of learning styles, can help your student find the joy in hard work and slowly but surely increase your child’s attention span for everything else.

Then absolutely put your child in music. The field needs them, badly.

There is almost nothing you can say that applies universally to all neurodivergent people. It’s a spectrum that is wide, deep, and hugely varied. What you can say, however, is music taps into the brain—any brain—in ways that are magical, no matter what kind of brain you have. And any time you put the tool of music into a unique brain, what comes out is also going to be unique. More often than not, it’s also amazing.

I’m going to get a little personal here.

One of the specialties I have cultivated over the years is working with students who are in the ADHD and autism space. Very often, the way that I find out that students are on the spectrum isn’t from their parents. It’s not from any behavior issues. It’s from the incredible ability they have to naturally and profoundly shape sound in new and exciting ways.

Autism often involves a high sensitivity to sensory input.[1] As I mentioned in Chapter 1, music lives in the emotion-oriented midbrain. This is also the part of the brain that processes and interprets the senses—the part that feels. When a person has a high sensitivity to feeling, they experience input differently and therefore express back out differently. These highly sensitive individuals will often express with extraordinary feeling. In music, that’s a huge gift.

Not only that, but if a student with high sensitivity to sound or sensory input learns to make music, they also learn to use music to calm themselves or to process big emotions. While this is a benefit for all music students, it’s especially useful for autistic and ADHD kids.

So, if you have a student who is neurodivergent, don’t hesitate. Find a music program that will not only include your child, but also will dig in with them to find their musical gift.

How do you help a kid learn something you don’t know anything about?

It’s a question every parent asks themselves at some point. None of us are experts on everything. Some things, like music homework, advanced math homework, or specific science homework can make you ask yourself the question, “Did I ever learn this in school?”

Here’s the good news about music: What your children need most from you are things you likely already know.

‍ What are those things?

Kids who are learning music need support with:

• Attention longevity

• Working through difficult problems

• Failing in a way that creates improvement

• Digging deep and not skimming over passages/work

• Learning how to enjoy hard work.

There is likely something on that list that you, as an adult, have learned in your life. You can meaningfully support your child simply by bringing your experiences to their practice. You don’t need to know the difference between mezzo forte and sforzando, or between an eighth note and a dotted quarter note; you simply need to help them do what a good learning does. Everything else can be addressed by their teacher.