A natural start to working with children and their families happened many years ago when I taught piano.

My lessons were given mostly to elementary school-age children and always in the home, which offered a great opportunity to meet the whole family. 

While learning to play the piano was the main objective, I found that other goals were just as important, very parallel to those of psychotherapy, and potentially life-changing.

In teaching piano, my additional goals were to help children:

- gain a sense of mastery,

- feel comfortable making mistakes, and 

- express their feelings through music.

This started from the first lesson. Before teaching my students a single note, I invited them to explore the piano itself. 

“Go under it (or next to) and knock on it,” I would say. They were instantly enchanted with the echo of their knock. (Yes, we're talking baby grands and uprights, not keyboards:)

“Let’s look at the strings,” I would add. 

Next, I would show them where the high notes on the piano are…then the low notes, and how you could play them loudly or softly.

Without any further guidance, I would ask them to play what thunder might sound like.  Intuitively, they reached for the low, booming notes – and banged away with delight.

“What about a rainfall…what might that sound like?” 

And they would play staccato – short jumpy notes – to represent the patter of rain.

In this way, they learned that the piano was a stage for emotional expression – and that they could express themselves right from go. Immediately the pressure was off. 

Looking back, I see that my early roots as a piano teacher provided a good base for offering psychotherapy to children. 

Psychotherapy sessions are about helping children feel safe and at ease, find unstructured ways of communicating, and experience that reassuring sense of complete acceptance for who they are.

The work is tremendously rewarding and the music that children make – real and metaphorical – is meaningful and so important to hear.