Why Do Kids Think All Music Teachers Have Inappropriate Traits? What I Learned As A Parent
I was merging onto the highway last month, halfway through picking my 14-year-old daughter Lila up from school, when she said it, half distracted by TikTok on her phone, salt and vinegar crumbs sticking to her hoodie: “Mom, why do all the music teachers at my school have pedophile vibes?”
I nearly missed the exit. I pulled into the nearest gas station parking lot, turned off the engine, and asked her to show me what she was talking about. She flipped through a dozen 15-second clips, each a compilation of “warning signs your teacher is a creep” that had been circulating on her For You Page. Every single example featured a music teacher. A high school choir teacher hugging a student after a performance. A guitar teacher leaning over a student’s shoulder to adjust their finger placement on the fretboard. A band teacher staying after school to run through a solo one more time.
To Lila and her friends, all of these interactions checked every box on the TikTok list. “That’s exactly what they say to look out for,” she said. “One-on-one time after school, touching your hands, being nicer than other teachers. All our music teachers do that.”
I sat there for a minute thinking about my own 10th grade piano teacher, Mr. Hale. He’d stay after school every Wednesday to help me practice for my state solo competition, when I was too nervous to play in front of anyone else. He’d tap my wrist gently to remind me to relax my hands when I tensed up. I never once thought that was weird. It was just how you learned to play piano.
A week later, I had parent-teacher conferences, and I stopped by the choir room to talk to Ms. Lopez, our school’s choir director. She’d been there 12 years, has two middle schoolers of her own, and she didn’t even act surprised when I brought up what Lila had said. She pulled out her phone and showed me a screenshot of a Snapchat thread from her students, talking about which teachers were “predatory.” Her name was at the top of the list. “I hug kids after solos,” she said, shrugging. “I ask them about their grandma when she’s in the hospital. I do after-school rehearsals for the spring musical. That’s just my job. But now that’s all ‘warning signs’.” She told me six families had pulled their kids out of private after-school lessons this semester, all because of rumors. The band teacher got a formal complaint last month after he adjusted a freshman’s clarinet embouchure. The kid posted about it to his 500 Snapchat followers, and suddenly half the school was convinced he was dangerous.
That’s when it clicked for me. It’s not that music teachers are actually more likely to be harmful. It’s that the core of what music teachers do lines up almost perfectly with the generic “warning sign” lists that go viral on social media, lists that don’t account for what teaching music actually requires.
Most core classes are 30 kids in a room, all facing the front, interactions are public. Music instruction is often one-on-one or in small groups. You can’t teach an instrument without physical adjustments – there’s no way to show someone how to hold a violin bow or position their left hand on a guitar without touching them, sometimes on their arm or hand or even face. Music teachers also end up building closer, more personal relationships with kids, because music is emotional. Kids come to them when they’re fighting with their parents or failed a test, because they’re already in a vulnerable space working on performance anxiety, and they’re more approachable than a math teacher you only see for 50 minutes a day. All of that is just part of the job, but to a kid who’s only ever learned about “warning signs” from 15-second TikTok edits, it all looks like proof something is wrong.
The tricky part is balancing this with the very real need to keep kids safe. No one wants to brush off actual inappropriate behavior, but we also don’t want to throw out good teachers and rob kids of the chance to learn music over viral tropes. I’ve found a few small things that work for our family, that other parents can do too. First, when your kid says a teacher is creepy, ask for specific examples before you react. I didn’t jump to “the teachers are fine” or “let’s go to the principal right now” – I asked Lila exactly what any of the teachers had done that made her uncomfortable. She couldn’t name anything, it was just what she’d seen online. That opens the door to talk about what actual inappropriate behavior actually is, versus what’s just part of the job. I told her, “If a teacher asks you to keep secrets from me, texts you about stuff that’s not about music, or touches you in a private place and you don’t like it, that’s something we deal with right away. But adjusting your hand on a ukulele to get the right chord? That’s just how you learn.”
For schools, the small changes make a big difference too. Our music department started propping all lesson room doors open during one-on-one lessons, and copying parents on all text communications about lessons. They put a small sign on every practice room door that says “Any student can request a third adult be present at any time, no questions asked.” None of these changes get in the way of teaching, but they take away the unnecessary secrecy that fuels rumors.
Lila signed up for after-school ukulele lessons two months ago. She had her first small recital last week, and Ms. Lopez hugged her after she finished playing her song. Lila didn’t think anything of it. We still talk about what’s okay and what’s not, and there’s always that edge of uncertainty – you can never be 100 percent, and we all know bad actors exist. But lately, more kids are signing back up for lessons, and Ms. Lopez told me the rumors have started to fade. It’s not a perfect fix, but it’s a start.
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