How to avoid student dropouts when they say they have no time for guitar.

I just spoke to a parent who said her son will no longer be having lessons. She said he was too busy and had no time to practice. A lame excuse as we all know. I explained to her that having no time should never be the reason for giving up. The only reason to give up guitar is because you don't actually want to play or dislike the guitar for some reason (or you are physically incapable). She said he will come back to guitar later when he has time.

I went on to explain that the time never comes. Guitar is an ongoing continuous commitment. Guitar is about establishing a routine and sticking to it no matter what. Those who stop and start mostly stop. In fact statistically less then 5% of our students who stop will never come back to lessons with G4.

The biggest problem here is this mother rang me when it was too late. They had already made the decision. The trick is to seek prevention rather than cure. Make giving up a big deal. Even a tragedy. Treat giving up as giving up for life! I know I wanted to give up a few times as a teen not because of time but because it was difficult. DON'T LET THEM GIVE UP.

For more advice on how to avoid students dropping out please listen to the following podcast. HOW TO KEEP STUDENTS FOR YEARS.

Teacher Performance

The review system will be introduced to coincide with the new Student Growth system. Please watch the video so you understand how, when and why you will be review and what it means for you.

How children deal with trauma

Even though I hope none of you have family effected by the bushfires I think the following articles is very helpful in understanding how children deal with trauma. You will all experience students at times who have been through some kind of trauma so having knowledge will help you when such a situation arises.


By Dr Janet Hall
Clinical Psychologist:
Author: Fear-free Children, Fight-free Families, How to be Boss of Bedtime.

Children are able to cope better with a traumatic event if parents, friends, family, teachers and other adults support and help them with their experiences.

Help should start as soon as possible after the event.

It's important to remember that some children may never show distress because they squash it inside, but it may begin to ooze out in uncharacteristic changes in behaviour after several weeks or even months. Other children may not show a change in behavior, but may still need your help.

Children may exhibit these behaviors after a disaster:

1. Be upset over the loss of a favorite toy, blanket, teddy bear or other things that adults might consider insignificant, but which are important to the child.

2. Change from being quiet, obedient and caring to loud, noisy and aggressive or may change from being outgoing to shy and afraid.

3. Develop nighttime fears. They may be afraid to sleep alone at night with the light off, to sleep in their own room, or have nightmares or bad dreams.

4. Be afraid the event will reoccur.

5. Become easily upset, crying and whining.

6. Lose trust in adults. After all, their adults were not able to control the disaster.

7. Revert to younger behavior such as bed wetting and thumb sucking.

8. Not want parents out of their sight and refuse to go to school or childcare.

9. Feel guilty that they caused the disaster because of something they had said or done.

10. Become afraid of wind, rain or sudden loud noises.

11. Have symptoms of illness, such as headaches, vomiting or fever.

12.Worry about where they and their family will live.

Things Parents or Other Caring Adults Can Do

1. Talk with the children about how they are feeling and listen without judgment. Let them know they can have their own feelings, which might be different than others. It's OK.

2. Let the children take their time to figure things out and to have their feelings. Don't rush them or pretend that they don't think or feel as they do.

3. Help them learn to use words that express their feelings, such as happy, sad, angry, mad and scared. Just be sure the words fit their feelings - not yours.

4. Assure fearful children that you will be there to take care of them.
Reassure them many times.

5. Stay together as a family as much as possible.

6. Go back as soon as possible to former routines or develop new ones.
Maintain a regular schedule for the children.

7. Reassure the children that the disaster was not their fault in any way.

8. Let them have some control, such as choosing what outfit to wear or what meal to have for dinner.

9. Help your children know that others love them and care about them by visiting, talking on the phone or writing to family members, friends and neighbours.

10. Encourage the children to give or send pictures they have drawn or things they have written to family and friends.

11. Re-establish contact with extended family members.

12. Help your children learn to trust adults again by keeping promises and including children in planning routines and outings.

13. Help your children regain faith in the future by helping them develop plans for activities that will take place later - next week, next month.

14. Children cope better when they are healthy, so be sure your children get needed health care as soon as possible.

15. Make sure the children are getting balanced meals and eating enough food and getting enough rest.

16. Remember to take care of yourself so you can take care of your children.

17. Spend extra time with your children at bedtime. Read stories, rub their backs, listen to music, talk quietly about the day.

18. lf you will be away for a time, tell them where you are going and make sure you return when you promised or call at the time you say you will.

19. Allow special privileges such as leaving the light on when they sleep for a period of time after the disaster.

20. Limit their exposure to additional trauma, including news reports.

21. Children should not be expected to be brave or tough, or to "not cry.

22. Don't be afraid to "spoil" children in this period after a disaster.

23. Don't give children more information than they can handle about the disaster.

24. Don't minimize the event.

25. Find ways to emphasize to the children that you love them.

26. Allow the children to grieve losses.

27. Develop positive rituals and "anniversary" activities to commemorate the event. Help children understand that these events may bring tears, but they are also a time to celebrate survival and the ability to get back to a normal life.

Activities for Children

1. Encourage the children to draw or paint pictures of how they feel about their experiences. Hang these at the child's level to be seen easily.

2. Write a story of the frightening event.

You might start with: Once upon a time there was a terrible ___________ and it scared us all_________. This is what happened: ____________

Be sure to end with, "And now we are safe."

3. Playing with playdough or clay is good for children to release tension and make symbolic creations.

4. Music is fun and valuable for children. Creating music with instruments or rhythm toys helps relieve stress and tension.

5. Provide the children with clothes, shoes, hats, etc. so they can play "dress up" and can pretend to be adults in charge of recovering from the disaster and "being in charge."

6. Make puppets with the children and put on a puppet show for family and friends, or help children put on a skit about what they experienced.

7. Read stories about disasters to and with children making sure to talk about how people coped and recovered.

Grouping student's is not so difficult

The best way to learn how to group students is by understanding how a more experienced group teacher handles the challenge. Here is an example of advice I gave one of our teachers recently.

In this case the boy's father is controlling the lessons. He believes private lessons are best for his son and of course wants the best for his son. The teacher is being agreeable therefore is unable to group. Here is my response.

"Parents who want the absolute best for their children should in fact do both group and private. We both know that playing with others is a different dynamic. Its like arguing whether running or swimming is better for your health. Do both! Private lessons are good but on their own do not complete the picture. Any pro player will tell you the fastest way to improve is to play with people who are better than you. Group work gives students a mix of team work, competitiveness, reflection, confidence building and social bonding. We are not teaching classical musicians. Most of our students want to be in bands and group lessons help them to gain the skills required.

Alex's Dad may be pushy but he is still paying us for professional advice. He is not the professional here. The more you allow him (or any parent) to run your lessons the less respect they will ultimately have for you. You have to be tactful of course but if his argument is based on comparing group to private then doing both is the answer."

Hope that helps.

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Student motivation and the Ultimate Song List (USL)

A recent teen student decided to drop out because they felt the songs in the G4GUITAR METHOD were too old.

This is a clear case of the student focusing on the songs of G4 and not relating the G4 skills to what he thinks is cool. This is where the Ultimate Song List (USL) comes into play. The USL helps both teacher and student to stay clear as to the ultimate goal for the student. It also helps the student to feel that the teacher is interested in them.

So what would I do in this situation?

I would touch on the student's interest as a source of motivation. If I found a recurring song on the student's USLs I would learn the song or at least a part of it and use it to help the student develop a particular skill. An example I like to use is; I found a few years back that the band MCR (My Chemical Romance) kept appearing on teenage girls USLs. So I ask one of the girls to bring me a CD. I listen and worked out 3 songs and used them to demonstrate picking, chords, scales, arpeggios and of course rhythm. It worked like a charm and the girls couldn't wait to get to their lesson each week.

Trick is to be creative about how you teach the G4GUITAR METHOD. The goal is to complete the skills and song on the checklist but you must remember to keep your students motivated by connecting to why they are learning guitar.