Teagan's Violin Lesson

One of Teagan's stronger personality traits is that of being a perfectionist, it is one that has long been a part of my family. It in and of itself is neither good nor bad but often manifests itself in a negative way. It can allow him to be really good at what he does. But it also drives him to spend too much time on a project trying to get it just right. But also experiencing utter frustration when it doesn't come out exactly the way it was expected to, and for his age and experience this is what happens more often than not. For many years we've been working on not allowing to let this get the better of him. There have been many a violin lesson when he touches bow to string and the lovely sound he's expecting to come forth never does at which point he shuts down and doesn't even want to try anymore because he feels like such a failure. It's absolutely heartbreaking to watch him go through this and yet such an achingly familiar feeling. All I can do is tell him that he did great, everyone makes mistakes, and he can only get better. Usually this just falls on deaf ears because he has such a hard time seeing his own progress. When his lesson starts to go this direction it is always very hard to then snap him out of, although he has one of the most kind and patient violin teachers in the world who usually manages to get him back on course and finish his lesson. Needless to say this makes it all the harder to make progress when there's not enough time in a lesson when he's not in a mood to go over what he needs to work on much less learn something new. Today Chamberlin took the kids to their violin lesson and he said Teagan did great today. I'm hoping that Teagan will start to feel more sure in his abilities playing the violin and we can start having more violin lessons like this!

Teagan at his lesson today