So, how do we keep students from acting out in music lessons?
Whatever you do, don’t yell at a student or even raise your voice. That never helps. You need to be calm. If you stay calm, the student stays calm.
Instead, I tell students, “Don’t worry about mistakes. Mistakes have their part to play in the process of learning [click for more info], and we’ll work on fixing them together.
“My job will be to help you with any mistakes you make. In fact, if you don’t make any mistakes, I don’t have a job. So, make a mistake ever so often so I feel like I have job security.” Students laugh when I say this, which helps them to settle down and relax. Also, it establishes my music studio’s philosophy.
Positive reinforcements, like giving high fives and praising students when they work hard or behave well, creates a good learning environment. You should have a 4 to 1 ratio of praise to criticism. Your praises can be as simple as: better, good, much improved, good effort, play it three times just like that.
Even criticism needs to be stated positively, such as: we need to work on [the technique that needs improving] or let’s tighten it up.
Besides creating a positive and relaxed work environment, you need to find the right level of challenge for your students. To learn how to do this, read:
For LD, ADD, ASD, and other special needs students, color coding the score will be the best pathway to success: