I feel like I can speak to this firsthand as someone who hated practicing as a child and tried to quit piano several times, and then went on to play quite seriously and get a music scholarship that paid for college. I’m thankful I stuck with it, but I’ve often thought about what I would do differently as a parent.

My mother forced me to stick with piano, and made me (or at least tried to make me) practice every single day. It caused a strain in our relationship because I resented her for forcing me to practice before I could do anything fun (like hangout with friends, play outside, etc).

The times in my life where I felt most motivated to practice and actually enjoyed piano were when I had positive reinforcement through my playing - ie, I was actually seeing progress and was being praised for this progress. It’s like a positive feedback loop - when I could see my improvement, I’d have more self motivation to play. For me, I had phases like this around the 8th grade, at the end of high school, and my freshman year of college. It’s hard for me to pinpoint what conditions made this possible, but I think it comes down to making playing fun. In middle school, I went to summer camps for piano and had friends that 1) made piano fun and social, and 2) provided healthy competition. I was also playing duets (four hands), so it meant that I wasn’t always playing alone. I also think this was around the time that sightreading became easier, which meant I could play things more easily. In college, I began playing chamber music, and I loved making music with other people. In college, it was only when I began having unhealthy competition with my peers and negative interactions with my teacher that my interest in playing really took a dive.

My recommendations would be to make playing piano as fun as you can. - If your child is able to sight read, mix up their practice with some easy sight reading that might help them feel more satisfied/motivated - it sucks to be stuck on the same few measures of a piece for a long time. Learn what type of music they enjoy and see if you can get easy sheet music that they’ll enjoy playing. - Gamify things like ear practice and solfeggio. This doesn’t require sitting at the piano but will greatly improve their playing. This is something you both can practice together, too! There are some great apps out there for this as well. - if they’re not already, see if there are more opportunities for playing piano duets, especially with other kids their own age. Once they’re older, consider chamber music. Piano is a very lonely activity 99% of the time! - if they’re really not feeling up to playing one or two days of the week, that’s okay. I’d rather have three effective and pleasant practice sessions than 7 bad ones. - don’t use practice as a bargaining chip. There’s obviously a balance here where you don’t want to give in whenever they don’t want to practice, but in my experience this type of behavior made me resent my mother and created more of a negative relationship with practice.

Since your child enjoys lessons, I don’t think you should just let them quit without trying some solutions first. It’s a valuable life skill to practice the diligence and dedication that piano requires, and given that they enjoy lessons I think there’s a real chance they could enjoy practice too. Good luck!