CHILD MUSIC
 
Bringing music into your child's world...
Child Music
By Vanessa Rasmussen, © 2006-2010, All rights reserved.
Music
is a valuable activity that contributes immensely to the development of a
child. In fact, new studies are suggesting that developing a child's musical
ability may actually improve his/her ability to learn and be successful at
other disciplines, such as language, math and science.Following are some of the reasons why music
is good for your child:
- Exposure to music makes children smarter.
- Music stimulates all of the senses and involves
the child at many levels. This "multi-modal approach" facilitates
many developmental skills.
- Children who take music lessons are able
to learn complex math problems earlier than those who've had no musical
training.
- Music can encourage socialization, self-expression,
communication, and motor development.
- Since music is processed by the brain in
both its hemispheres, it can stimulate cognitive functioning and may be
used for remediation of some speech/language skills.
- Research also shows that adults who learnt
music before the age of 12, had better vocabulary than those who had not.
- Music is highly motivating and it can also
have a calming and relaxing effect.
- A child is able to handle stress and painful
situations better with the help of music therapy.
Children respond to music even when they are
tiny babies. This is why mothers have always sung lullabies to their children
to relax them and help them go to sleep. In fact, you can even sing to your
baby before it is born. Afterwards, sing to your infant often and remember
to make eye contact. Choose simple, soothing melodies (no loud, startling
noises), such as lullabies, blues or smooth jazz. Remember that very young
babies are able to imitate sounds, so try to offer music that your infant
may be able to coo back to you at some point.
Slightly older babies will be ready for more
lively music. You can always count on the classic nursery rhymes like "Humpty
Dumpty sat on a wall", and "Jack and Jill". You can get some
tapes or CD's of popular children's' nursery rhymes. Ask your children to
clap out the rhythms, or beat out the rhythm with a musical instrument. Toddlers
will enjoy singing along and doing the accompanying movements to nursery rhymes.
Let children pick their own musical instruments.
Some of the musical instruments that kids will enjoy are - things they can
hit like drums and bongos, triangles and glockenspiels, things they can shake
like jingle bells, tambourines, and maracas, things they can blow like trumpets,
harmonica, whistles and so on.
Studies show the musical ability of children
raised in a household rich in musical experiences far surpasses that of children
living in households lacking this richness. It is critical that our children
hear and see us being musical with our voices and our bodies so they may feel
encouraged to experiment and play with music led by their own natural urges
to do so.
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