I couldn't practice because...

While I am very clear about what I expect my students to achieve during the week, I understand that life happens.  Some of my students have intense, competitive commitments in other areas (ballet, gymnastics, robot building, and most memorably a champion baton twirler).  All of them need to learn to swim, almost all of them have sports seasons, and then of course there are the holidays.  Because I don't expect piano to be the center of anyone else's universe, students and parents are very open with me about those periods when time and energy is limited.  We work together to make the most of what we have.

But this year has seen some unprecedented justifications for bouts of non-practicing. My favorite was the kid who claimed for an entire academic year that there was no chair for her to sit upon, thus she couldn't practice because I had told her that it was not okay to practice standing up.  One week she announced that she had been sitting on a carton of juice boxes from Costco until her father put them in the fridge. 

On a more macabre note, one family claimed that there had been a death in the family.  A cousin very close to the child, and she was too upset to practice.  I would be too if I had, ahem, three cousins die in three months. 

And then there is always the excuse that the piano ate their homework.