If you’ve ever found yourself nagging your kid to go practice, you’re not alone. Almost every music parent has been there. The sighs, the “in a minute”, the creeping feeling that you’ve somehow turned a beautiful thing into a chore. It doesn’t have to stay that way.
Over the years I’ve picked up a few things that genuinely help. None of it is complicated. Most of it comes down to building a routine that fits your family, keeping your expectations realistic, and giving your child some room to make it their own.
Start With a Routine You Actually Chose Together
Sit down with your child and talk about when they’d like to practice. Don’t just hand them a schedule. Ask.
You might be surprised by the answer. Some kids are sharp as a tack right after school and fizzle out by dinner. Others need to decompress first and do better later in the day. My own daughter isn’t a morning person at all, so squeezing in practice before school was never going to work for us. After school suits her much better. Your child will have their own rhythm. The trick is figuring out what it is.
That said, giving your child a choice doesn’t mean they get to choose whether practice happens at all. You’re still the one helping to set the routine. But letting them have some say in when it happens tends to make a real difference.
Once you’ve landed on a time, protect it. Treat it like brushing teeth, not like an optional extra. When practice has a fixed spot in the day, something interesting happens. You stop having to remind them so much because it’s just what happens at 4pm, after dinner, or whenever you’ve agreed on.
Keep Your Expectations Down to Earth
A young child isn’t going to sit and practice for forty-five minutes, and honestly, they shouldn’t have to. Short, focused sessions can be much easier to manage than one long stretch where their attention checks out halfway through.
As kids get older and more comfortable with their instrument, their ability to concentrate for longer tends to grow on its own. You don’t need to force it. What’s enough practice really depends on the child, their age, their level, and what they’re working on at the time. There’s no magic number that applies to everyone.
If you want more detail on how much practice is appropriate, we’ve written a whole piece on How Much Should I Practice?
The goal isn’t to squeeze in as many minutes as possible. It’s staying consistent without turning practice into something your child dreads.
Don’t Let Practice Turn Into a Battle
This might be the most important thing I can tell you: try not to let practice become a fight.
If every day starts with “Have you practiced yet?” in that tone, you know the one, practice stops being about music at all. It becomes about pressure, about parent versus kid. Nobody picks up an instrument for that.
That doesn’t mean stepping back entirely and hoping for the best. Young kids need help building the routine in the first place. That’s just true. But there’s a real difference between setting up a routine together and arguing your way through it every afternoon.
Once your child knows practice happens at a particular time, you may find you don’t have to keep bringing it up. The routine starts doing some of the work for you.
Make It Something They Actually Want to Do
Different kids respond to different things, so you may need to try a few approaches before something clicks.
For us, a simple sticker chart did wonders. Every time my daughter finished a session, she got to add a sticker. Nothing fancy, but she loved it. It gave her something to look forward to and something to point at with pride.
A chart won’t be right for every child, and that’s fine. Think about what actually lights your kid up. It might be seeing their progress, working toward a small reward, or simply knowing you’ve noticed the effort.
Some children barely need any of this at all. Once practice becomes a normal part of the day, the routine itself carries them. That’s really the goal. You don’t want your child needing a fresh reward or reminder every time they pick up their instrument. You want practice to gradually become just something they do.
Let Them Have Some Say in It
Kids engage far more when they feel like they have a stake in things, even small ones.
Let your child weigh in on when they practice. If there are two suitable times in the day, let them pick between them. Give them a bit of choice in what they work on, within whatever their teacher has set out.
You’re still the one holding the structure together. That part doesn’t change. But when your child has a hand in shaping it, practice stops feeling like something done to them and starts feeling like something that’s theirs. Over time, that’s what lets it shift from “Mum/Dad made me” to something they just do on their own.
Every Child Really Is Different
There’s no single formula that works for every family, and I’d be lying if I said otherwise.
Some kids fall into a routine almost immediately. Others need more support, patience and trial and error. A sticker chart might be exactly what one child needs and completely beside the point for another.
Try not to measure your child against someone else’s kid, or even against an older sibling. What matters is finding what works for them. What works may also change over time. Something that helped when your child first started lessons might not be necessary a year later. As they grow more independent, you may be able to step back and let them take more ownership of their practice.
Remember, your job isn’t to be their music teacher. It’s to create an environment where practicing feels normal and doable, not like a battle they have to brace for every day.
Keeping Music Enjoyable
At the end of the day, a good practice routine should make music more enjoyable for your child, not less.
Keep it realistic, keep the peace, and look for small ways to make practice feel positive. You don’t need a perfect system. Just something that works reasonably well for your child and your family. Over time, the aim is for practice to become part of your child’s normal routine rather than something you negotiate every day.
At Do Re Mi Studios, we want our students to genuinely enjoy learning their instrument, both in lessons and when they practice at home. If you’d like to know more about lessons for your child, have a look at our music lessons page and the range of instruments we teach.