“I’d like my child to start to singing lessons. They love singing and I want them to get better. When should my child start singing lessons? How young is too young? Is there an ideal age to start singing lessons?”
I get called up a LOT and asked this “when should be child start singing lessons?”. The honest answer is, it depends. It depends on the age and suitability of the child as well as the temperament and approach of the teacher you might be looking to engage for lessons.
Personally, I’ve taught children as young as 6 who have been incredibly receptive to working hard on their voice in and out of lessons, but I’ve also tried to teach 16 year olds who barely seem to be paying attention – it honestly does depend.
That said, my personal experience is that 6 years old is the youngest I’d consider teaching, but even that is subject to meeting the child (and parent) and having an initial consult lesson. That way both you (as the parent) and myself as the teacher can get a clear understanding of where that’s going to go. One of the most important things is that the child themselves wants to get better, whether they are the one that suggests lessons specifically or not.
As a general guideline I’d say if your child is aged:
- Between 6-12 – Give the coach a call and have a quick chat, then (if appropriate) book an initial session and go from there. Kids are so different developmentally in that age bracket it’s very hard to make a clear judgement until you’ve had an initial session.
- Between 12-15 – This is probably totally fine to go ahead and book. If you’ve got an overly mature 11 year old (or younger) then you could probably consider yourself in this category. By this age generally kids have a bit more robustness about practicing and taking instruction, but again, it’s on a case-by-case basis.
- 16+ – I’d suggest that any desire for lessons has to come from them. The older teens I’ve taught with less of an interest have usually been persuaded by someone else rather than them wanting to do it off their own backs.
Hope you find that helpful! Feel free to drop me a line if you need any further help with this topic.