Last night was supposed to be a Marvel movie night, a reward for our son's hard work on the piano. But things didn't go as planned. Let me take you through the saga of "Teen vs. Marvel: The Showdown."
We did not go to see Captain Marvel last night. Nope. By the time our son got around to doing his piano, we were mad. He had a day off due to parent-teacher meetings. He practiced one piece for 7 minutes and reported to his Dad, when he got home, that he had "done some." He was acting like a few more minutes of polishing would do it.
In one of those epic, tell-all reveals that seem scripted, I exclaimed, "Are you kidding me? Only 7 minutes of practice with the exam coming up?"
Then, Dad said firmly, "We shouldn't go."
Boy, did that piano start working. The best practice I have heard in over 2 years. Going back to work in sections. No breaks. Same piece 5x, 7x as it was worked. I'd go to call out like I do, "There is no way you are done practicing" or "Okay, good job. Next piece." But before I could get the words out, our boy would go back and do more work on the piece he just played. Repeating and removing hesitations.
During all of the Marvelloso practice, his Dad and I had been texting. In our exchange, heated —no sense in lying to you all, I said "we have to not go. Move the tickets tomorrow. And, if he doesn't practice again, we keep moving them."
We always give in to our son. Because we want the thing that teaching him a lesson would deprive us of. We don't have the schedule to go to plan B.
But we did yesterday.
Our tenor-voiced teen was so mad, "I did everything that you wanted. Let's go."
I am so proud that his Dad said, "Too late. We had already said the consequence, and a last-ditch effort to turn things around wasn't going to change anything." Or something like that.
His Dad was in fine form. When our teen threw back, "I am SO mad at you," Dad said, "I am SO mad at YOU. I wanted to go to the movies tonight after work. And, if you don't practice tomorrow, we won't go at all."
All I know is that was the best independent practice session I had ever heard from his middle school body. If Marvel could bottle it, parents would make them rich.
Marvel Motivation - sprinkle some any time you want your kid to perform to their true potential.
Now that's a superhero power I can relate to!
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