[Miss C]

I teach a few piano lessons in my home besides my regular classroom teaching job. I have only three students, all children of friends of my family. One little girl started a few weeks ago, and she ALWAYS shows up like 10 minutes early, during another student's lesson. She come in and waits for her turn. This doesn't bother me too much, but I really wish she'd stay in her car until it's time (her mom always stays out in the car throughout the lesson). Anyway, yesterday, her older brother (16 years old and quite possibly the most annoying creature ever) came in early with her and sat there through the last 10 minutes of the other kid's lesson. I know if I was a kid, I wouldn't want an older kid sitting there listening to my lesson. Anyway, is this normal? And, if it's not, how do I approach this and not mess up the friendship? Like I said, all of my students are friends of my family. Thanks!

A friendship should withstand a little kind guidance. Imagine yourself in the shoes of this other family. They have no idea (I am guessing) that what they doing is a distraction or is rude and when I have "no clue" I appreciate someone kindly telling me what would be best.

I'd just tell her outright, the sooner the better, what you need. I'd say something like, "It's a distraction for Sally to come in while Jane is still having her lesson. Could Sally wait in the car with you until you see Jane walk out the door, please?" No need to go into an explanation of why (the mom should understand) and no need to mention the annoying teenaged brother.

Just a quick statement should do it for you. If not, a kind reminder after a few more interruptions should fix it.

A true friendship should be able to take a little guidance like this.

If you are really concerned about the effects that this would have on your friendship and don't want to approach her, you can always "rearrange your schedule" so that either the intruding family or the little girl who keeps gettign interrupted take their lessons at a different time so that the situation goes away due to a new schedule. Or you can choose to ignore it, but I think that would be unfair to the family who's getting interrupted.

Alicia