I love your first point. A healthy, positive mindset makes all the difference.

I find that having a specific sequential practice instructions is vitally important when helping a young child to practice. As a teacher, I used to be guilty of giving very sketchy instructions. Students don’t need to hear, “Practice this bit and make it better.” They need to hear something more like, “Play the section in the green box, 10 times, on open strings only, making sure that that the bow stops between each note. Then add the fingers, listening for the ringing tone on A and D.”

Instead of continually nagging to play more slowly, I tell my students to play at Practice Tempo, the speed at which you can’t get it wrong.