The Wheels Come Off

Things haven’t gone what you would call well this week with the Maestro and the Cello. As you read in Riley’s email to the Teacher, he whacked Carolyn with a piece of cardboard on Sunday. Since then, he hasn’t really wanted to practice. He’s shown up for all of his practices as a kitty, and has not been paying attention.

He went for a lesson on Wednesday. Well, the cat did; the boy did not. He wouldn’t stop being a cat long enough to show the Teacher anything. To be fair, he’d gone straight from school to having his stitches removed, and it had gone very poorly. He’s had to be strapped down again, and I wasn’t there to help him calm down. According to one report, it ended up being more stressful for him than having them put in. Everyone had a short break, and then they’d gone to the lesson. So, he was working under non-ideal circumstances…

The teacher told him that she wanted to give lessons to a boy, and not a kitty. He wouldn’t stop being a kitty, so the ended up leaving without any lesson at all. He cried all the way home, and wondered again why she took his bow. He hated the idea of going home without a lesson, but he wouldn’t do what he needed to do to get a lesson. Isn’t that the way everything goes with kids? Good thing I was never like that, right?

Riley thinks that perhaps she hasn’t been positive enough with him about things that he DOES do. He used to go for 45 minute practices where you covered everything you were supposed to, and now you try for 5 minutes and only get as far as taking the cello out and the closing bow —instead of the practice-opening-bow— before he runs away. It’s pretty hard to be only positive when you know that he can do so much more but will not. It’s like praising me for brushing my teeth in the morning. Nice to hear, but it doesn’t really feel genuine when I’ve been brushing my teeth every morning for at least the last year. (that’s a joke.)

So we’re stuck in a destructive cycle. I think he feels pressure so resists, and because he IS resisting, we don’t know how to stop pressuring without just giving up. The Teacher said that when he had two practices as a boy instead of a kitty, she wanted him to come back. That isn’t very many, so it’s essentially re-trying the last lesson instead of setting a low bar for the next lesson. Her hope was they could do one today, I think. I don’t know if he qualifies, though.

Yesterday Riley brought the kids to campus, and she and the Maestro watched the Teacher conduct her string orchestra practice. The Music Building is kitty-corner (so appropriate!) to my lab, so I got to come and play in the hallway with Hildr so she didn’t explore the stack of music cases. We hid in the curtains and said “Bus!” instead.

The Teacher was really positive. She introduced him to her orchestra as “Her Cello Student!” He didn’t wave. He just grinned at them instead. He didn’t hide behind Riley’s legs, though, so that’s something. There were nine cellos there. They counted them.

I wonder about his bow. There are still several things that he is supposed to demonstrate before he gets his practice bow, but I wonder if he can skip them. What got this whole thing started was him watching “An Evening with Danny Kaye” and playing the cello along with the orchestra using wooden spoons. Now he has a real cello, but nothing to bow with, which is like someone who wants to be a racecar driver getting a car with no steering wheel.

I know that he is different than most kids. Most kids need to pass off all these things before they get their practice bow, and demonstrate 500 “bow-hands” before they get their real bows. Is he different in the ways that would make it OK for him to skip those? Would that be instead like giving keys to the kid who wants to be a racecar driver? We need to talk to the Teacher, but she had too many things going on yesterday.

In any event, I think that he doesn’t know when he will ever get his bow back. It’s hard for him to work on holding eye-contact as something that will get him his bow, because I don’t think he sees the connection. When you dangle the carrot so far ahead that the donkey can’t see it, it isn’t much of a carrot.

I am really full of metaphors this morning. It must have something to do with writing at 5:00 am.

Riley is wondering if he can be successful at both pre-school (yesterday was only his fifth day) and Cello lessons. We felt like he needed to do both. Well, we felt like school was a good idea, and we felt like Cello was a good idea. I guess that is not exactly the same as feeling good about both.

Mr. Miyagi, in “The Karate Kid” said that there are “No bad Pupils, only bad teachers. Teacher say, Pupil do.” So what do we say, so the Maestro will do?