Tonight as I finished teaching and I heard my husband getting my daughter ready for bed, I had a brief moment of panic because we hadn't practiced guitar today yet.  I quickly ran up and had her do her hardest finger exercise real quick before bed (the one she's still working on the dexterity for).  I knew we didn't have time to take out the guitars and do an actual practice session, so I breathed a sigh of relief that I at least did something today, so I didn't have a blank spot on her practice chart.  (Yep, I'm a Type A personality, for sure!)

Then I went downstairs to where I keep my my notes/practice chart to jot down what we did today, and I looked at the next blank box - Tuesday.  And I thought, "wait, today isn't Tuesday, it's still Monday." and I read what was in the Monday box and then remembered, "oh ya! we sorta actually did practice today."  I didn't take out our guitars, but she had her toy Minnie Mouse Uke, and this morning she played "I'm the teacher" and led me through all the positions movements, and then we played Hide and Seek Dynamics just strumming the poorly tuned untunable toy uke.  I really wanted to get out the actual guitars, but we had only a couple minutes before it was time to leave for swim class, so we just played her little game she led on the toy, and I noted down that we did those games/exercises cuz we did technically actually do them, just not with her real guitar with the real strings tuned to the correct pitches, but she isn't playing notes yet anyway, so I forgot that we did practice today!  (more than just the 1 tricky finger exercise real quick once before she fell asleep).

Oh, and for those following along, she didn't hold her breath and put her head under the water today at swim class, but she compromised and put her chin under and blew bubbles.  We're gonna keep working on that game with the giant blue scarf at home until she feels comfortable doing the actual thing in the water.  It's a step up from last lesson because she resisted doing even the blow bubbles in the water after being slowly brought into the water from a "jump" into the teacher's arms.  Slow progress is still progress, and I'm perfectly happy with slow progress, because she's moving at a pace that is comfortable for her and we're not pushing her beyond what she feels ready for.  Also, my husband is thoroughly learning guitar at a toddler's pace.  He says it's a nice refreshing change after a long hard day at work where he has to use his brain a whole bunch.  He likes just following along at her level, knowing that our presence there is helping ground her by us modeling the behavior she should be doing in her lessons.

I've been enjoying figuring out what her little brain is thinking, especially when she's resistant to trying the new thing.  She might be a perfectionist personality, similar to me, in that she's not ready to show it until she knows she can fully execute it properly, so that if she's still thinking through trying to understand it, she doesn't want us to see her not get it right til she's ready to show proficiency.  I know I need to work on giving her space to "try and get it wrong" more, so that she doesn't feel this way so much.  I certainly want her to feel ready when it comes to recitals and actual opportunities to show proficiency, but I don't want her to feel that she must get it right, right away, especially when learning.  The things she can do now that she couldn't before, she is quite proud of herself and loves saying "look mom!" when she shows me finger exercises she didn't have the dexterity to do before.

Edited to add: I also forgot that before nap time, my kid quizzed me on the finger names.  She put a finger puppet on her finger and asked which one it was, and then switched it to another finger behind her back and quizzed me on all the fingers on both hands.  We decided that the thumb on the 1-4 hand will be 0 (zero), cuz she didn't like that it didn't have a name, like the PIMAC hand had names for all the fingers and thumb.  She's showing initiative in her own practicing, and she's only 3.5 years old.  She's also deeply thinking about the things she learning, wondering why the thumb on the left hand doesn't have a number, so she assigned it a number.  I think Suzuki Guitar lessons is proving to be quite wonderful for her development as a human.

What does it mean to be a Suzuki Parent?  Is it just bringing your kid to lessons and group classes, and making sure they do their daily CD listening and practicing at home?  Well, just like the Suzuki Method is more about the philosophy behind the materials than just the songs and the order they are introduced, Suzuki Parenting is a method of parenting.  It's creativity, flexibility, patience, encouragement, consistency - basically it's supporting your young learner through this journey and helping to make the process fun.

You're going to think this next point is completely unrelated, but stick with me for a moment.  My 3 year old child has recently begun swimming lessons (well, actually, she's been taking swimming lessons for almost a whole year before she started Suzuki Guitar, but a lot of those early lessons were water acclimation, much like her beginning Suzuki Guitar lessons, with getting acclimated to the guitar).  Anyway, the point is, she's at that level in her swim classes that everyone else is willing to put their face under water, and she keeps refusing.  (She actually once said to me on vacation at a pool "Mommy look, I can put my face in the water!" and proceeded to turn her head and dip her cheek into the water.  It was very cute and I applauded cuz she was technically correct and she did the thing her swim teacher keeps trying to get her to do, at least her definition of the task.)  Is that what I mean by Suzuki Parenting Method?  Well, that's a little too obvious.  Encouraging our children every micro step of the way is just good parenting in general, I think.

My actual point is what I decided to do to help my child practice jumping in the water and holding her breath.  I knew she needed to work on this skill: hold breath, jump in, resurface above water, begin breathing again.  Those are all obvious steps to us, but each of those steps needs to be taught and practiced.  (A side note: now that I am potty training a small child, I never realized how many steps it takes to teach a kid how to go use the bathroom.  The beauty of the Suzuki Method is breaking down complex skills into manageable elements to build ability.  Can someone please write a Suzuki Potty Training Method?  I will absolutely take that teacher training course!)  Anyway, so we don't have a pool at home, but I have a giant blue scarf.  And my kid likes to jump off the couch.  So, I tied off the scarf on one end to the curtain hook, and held the other end taut, and have my kid stand on the couch, hold her breath, jump onto the floor, and then I bring the scarf down below her head and then tell her to breathe out and resume breathing.  I'm hoping this will give her more confidence in her next swim class to try this in the actual water (and not a scarf representing fake water).  When I came up with this idea, I thought to myself "Now THAT is the Suzuki Parenting Method!"  It applies to more than just music.  It's the creativity to come up with a way to practice a certain skill at home if you don't have all the resources the teacher does in the lesson.

And my big win of the day was that at her lesson this week, she was able to show her teacher that she has been paying attention all along and showed most of the skills we've been practicing from her practice cards.  Even the teacher was like "which one was this exercise?" and instead of me explaining, my kid just started doing it, and the teacher was like, "wow, that's great!  you remembered that one!  great job!" from like something she showed us once way back in like lesson 2 (today was lesson 7).  Yep, we've been reviewing literally everything the teacher has shown us from the beginning every week, to the best proficiency she can produce.  One thing the teacher showed us week 1, she could do in week 3.  And this week she could do the 2nd part of it.  It might seem like slow progress, but the fact is it's progress and the synapses are forming.  I just gotta remember this at her next swim class, that just cuz we practice the holding breath and jumping into "water" at home, doesn't mean she'll necessarily be able to do it at her swim class next week.  It might take a few more weeks of practice and then one day she'll just jump right in and not cough a lot upon coming back up.

I started out taking notes in the lesson assignments notebook of what we practiced each day, so I knew what we haven't done enough of, and I can also see a clear pattern of what my child wants to practice more of.  After a few lessons, I was losing track of the early assignments from the first couple weeks of lessons, esp without flipping back in the notebook a bunch.  I decided to make practice cards.  They are like little index cards cut in half.  I split them up into exercises with the guitar, and finger exercises we can do anytime anywhere.  Rather than sitting my kid down at a set time each day to go through all the things, I now keep the "with guitar" cards in the guitar case, and go through them when we take the guitar out and have designated practice time, and I keep the finger exercises cards that can be done anytime/anywhere in my wallet that lives in my pocket that I can pull out and do with her anytime we are out somewhere waiting for a minute or two (in line at grocery store, sitting and waiting for story time to begin at the library, etc).  Even on days we don't actually take the guitar out (if it was a busy day and we just weren't home much), we still got some practicing in.  And the next day we just make sure to go through all the guitar practice cards, cuz she's already worked on the fingers and hands skills the day before.

We also have 1 card that is "with a group" so she can practice her group class stuff too.  We reserve that for play date days when enough friends come over that we can do the group activities with.  We might just get enough of her friends interested in learning Suzuki guitar that there will be a Pre-Twinkle group formed.  Right now she's in the regular Suzuki group class with the Book 1 students.  Or maybe her friends will want to learn Suzuki violin from me.  Either way, getting more kids interested in music and wanting to learn how to play is great, cuz we'll build a community of little music lovers who can encourage each other as they grow.

One thing Dr. Suzuki says is, "You only need to practice on the days you eat." It's a funny joke, but a key component of learning.  Taking "days off" from a skill built on repetition not only slows you down, but it makes the neurons and synapses not gel.  Is it hard to get a young child with lots of interests to practice everyday?  Well, yes and no.  We certainly practice every day, but do we do everything every day?  Nope.  My kid doesn't always have the stamina or attention span to go through her entire lesson assignment every day, so we do at least some of the exercises each day, and the ones we didn't get to yesterday, we start with the next day.  So, yes we practice every day.  But no, we don't practice everything every day.  That's how to maintain your sanity with a young child who doesn't want to do something.  Maybe that day she doesn't have the patience to attempt something she doesn't yet possess the dexterity to accomplish, maybe she wants to mull it over a bit, maybe you need to figure out ways to scaffold the skill until she can build it up to what the teacher is aiming for.  Notice where they are, and keep it fun, and stop before it gets frustrating.  Set the expectation that they don't have to do it today, we can try it again tomorrow.  Remove the pressure, set the expectation that we can always try again later, and you might just see your child attempting it on their own in the corner of the playroom.

So far, I have found that the consistent exposure is what will make it eventually gel together.  I still show her the skill daily, and whether she does it with me or not isn't the point.  I'm getting my practice in, and building my technique.  That was our goal from the beginning - to get her early exposure to playing with proper technique, and to grow her love of music.  It's like with Baby Sign Language and "sign approximation" - we absolutely accept and celebrate the micro moments she can get it close enough.  Something she couldn't do 3 weeks ago, she can now, with daily diligent exposure and attempts.  We also build an environment for success.  I post pictures up around the house at her eye level and when she passes that spot, she stops and does the thing.  We also put her Suzuki listening CD on a Creative Tonie so she can listen to the music anytime she wants, and it gives her autonomy to do certain parts of her practicing on her own.

After the MA Suzuki festival this year, I finally decided that I will start my 3 year old on Suzuki guitar.  My husband and I have been grappling with the decision on when to start her on Suzuki violin, being that I am a Suzuki violin teacher.  We have been planning for this since her birth, we decide that I would be the teacher and he would be the practice parent.  We had it all thought out to avoid the common "parent as teacher" problems that can come from the Suzuki Triangle having 2 of the points merged into one person.

My decision wasn't a fleeting, "oh ya, I forgot Suzuki guitar was a thing!"  It was a carefully thought out path that I think will be beneficial for our family, not because I don't want to teach my very headstrong child violin (an instrument notorious for being "hard to learn"), but rather because we both have an interest in learning guitar.  When I found out that Suzuki guitar is the classical style, or "finger-picking style" as my husband calls it, and that it's his favorite to listen to and therefore wants to learn, I realized this will be a great opportunity to begin my child's Suzuki music education, and a chance for us to learn something together as a family.  After all, learning via the "Mother Tongue" approach, and seeing us motivated to practice, will help my child see that practicing is just something that we do each day.

I am very much looking forward to entering the 3rd point of the Suzuki Triangle, being a Suzuki kid, and then doing the teacher training as an adult and having a great career as a Suzuki teacher, this final step in the journey - Suzuki Parenting, will help me truly experience it full circle.