As a parent, you’re painfully aware of the sway that instant gratification has over your young musician. While you can extol the virtues of music lessons and practice to your child, when competing for his time and interest, the siren song of Snapchat will always win. And win big. However, don’t despair. Instant gratification can be hacked by you, an astute parent, for your own devious ends. Enter habit tracking.
Habit tracking is an established concept. It’s merely a way to measure a habit over time. Think food diaries, work out logs, or loyalty punch cards. As habit trackers, they all provide visible and immediate evidence of progress. We humans love progress. So, if we can see our progress in real time, our habit results in the glorious dopamine hit known as instant gratification.
Now how do you make habit tracking work for your budding virtuoso? For starters, your My Music Bridge app’s badge system already does just this. Want to next level the concept? Try a money jar. Each time your child plays the piano, you place a greenback in their money jar. While practice isn’t immediately gratifying, (particularly early on), the money in the jar is. It both visibly tracks the habit plus reinforces it with a tangible payoff. You could even stipulate that the jar proceeds go toward a musical purchase for, say, concert tickets. As an extra bonus then, the habit tracking method itself also reaffirms their interest in music and their identity as a musician.
So, Snapchat, even with all its instantly gratuitous charms, has nothing on the well-informed (and well financed) parent. Try habit tracking with your young musician. Who knows? There may be some instant gratification in it for you, too.
