I've had certain expectations since before my daughter was born as to how my life would be with a child. And although many things have exceeded my expectations, some things remain unseen.
The expectation that had been weighing on me is that I would soar through early pre-twinkle lessons on the violin with my daughter (she teased me by giving me a glimpse of readiness at 18 months - what I've since realized was it was me who wasn't ready).
What I began to place the blame on was the fact that just as all the kids I've worked with in my life have been different and unique, so is my daughter. My daughter is also too wise and knows that I am a parent who is a violin teacher and not just a parent who is teaching her the violin. And there is also some genetics in there in which I hated when my own mother tried to teach me anything (she would use her "teacher voice" instead of her mom voice and I couldn't stand it! - and now I probably do the same!).
It was far too easy to find something blame, and it was too easy to place the blame on my own daughter and I knew this wasn't right. But knowing this didn't lighten the load, it just created more frustration. Even when I realized the only person truly to blame was myself, knowing this was really just an excuse because the reasons don't really matter. What does matter is that my daughter loves music. Her face lights up when she hears me play and any time she hears the violin she asks if it is me. She is interested in so many different instruments, sings at the top of her lungs and is so creative in coming up with new ways to sing songs. She loves watching others play their instruments and always wants to be a part of lessons, group classes and recitals.
I try to remind myself daily that just because my daughter may not be taking the steps I expect her to or know she is fully capable of, does not mean that she is not taking the right steps for her. We can encourage and help anyone to take steps in a certain direction, but ultimately that individual will decide when and if they will actually take those steps and it may be in a completely different direction than what we thought.
It was only when I stopped MY EXPECTATIONS of my daughter and let her approach the violin naturally and in her own way that we both started to enjoy the process of practice more. Combining the role of Suzuki Teacher and Mother has been harder than I thought and I forget to tell myself sometimes the things I would tell my Suzuki Parents if they were in a similar situation. Not only did my daughter need to be ready to start practice everyday, but I needed to be ready for that commitment. That also meant committing to a lot of days that would not go as planned and knowing that this was okay.
Once I changed MY MINDSET on practicing with my daughter and realized that it's not going to look like how I work with other kids in lesson, we started to be able to practice everyday. Keep in mind some of these days are literally only 1 minute of practice and some days we don't even touch the violin, but we practice something from our music book together and we try to enjoy every minute. The time commitment we have made to one another has been incredible, especially on the few days when she asks and reminds me it is time to practice!
Our expectations of our kids are just that, our expectations. OUR expectations of OUR kids in OUR lives. But our kids have their own lives from the minute they are born and grow to have their own expectations. Expectations of us, themselves and of the world around them. We can grow to rely on expectations too much and they begin to define who we are or who we think we should be. If we can stop focusing so much on the end result and more on the day to day and the journey and the everyday choices we make, I think we will all end up some place greater than our original expectations of the future.
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