Benefits Of Music: Why Music Should Be Integral To The Parenting Journey

How Does Music Help Children?

Music, needless to say, has multiple benefits that aid the healthy overall development of children. Further in this article, we shall be sharing some substantial benefits that different forms of music have for children of varying age groups.

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Brings Calmness

Research cites how lullabies work to calm children and parents, and ease the transition into sleep. Here’s a quote from Dr. Dennie Palmer-Wolf, who heads up the Carnegie Hall Lullaby Project, “Lullabies allow children to create neural pathways for calming down, soothing, falling asleep. A lullaby is an external routine that becomes an internal pathway for calming down.” Putting kids to bed on time without struggle and temper running high, and with a sense of relaxation is usually a major task for any parent to achieve. Setting a “lullaby routine” can give you just that. And this is only one tiny part of the many facets that give meaning to the word “music”!

Aids Concentration

Remember when you were little and you could spin around, and around, and around, and not feel queasy? Through spinning, young children develop their vestibular system (the inner ear system that controls balance, posture, and spatial orientation). In other words, it’s a way for children to figure out where their “center” is. These important movement experiences come naturally with music and help the child’s nervous system to mature and organise.

According to Kawar, Ron Frick, and Sheila M.Frick (2005) Handbook for Innovative Practice, the centrifugal force experienced on things like merry-go-rounds activates the fluid-filled cavities in the inner ear. These sensors tell the brain the orientation of the head which develops grounding and sustaining attention to the task. So when you pick up your child and spin or hold hands for “kikli” (spinning around in a pair while holding hands), rather than making children susceptible to falls, it actually improves their surefootedness, and their ability to concentrate in the classroom.

Music Helps The Child's Ability To Concentrate In The Classroom

Strengthens Memory

Did you know that musical learning follows the same flow chart of how information is heard/seen/experienced, then stored in our mighty brain, and

thereafter reproduced as and when required? When we say this, we are referring to the everyday activity of your child listening to their favourite song and singing it out loud in the shower. While all this is happening, their memory is getting a healthy workout!

Let’s look at it from another example. Imagine it's been a while since you heard your favourite song and when it plays up in a cafe you jump right in and remember all the words! How did you do that? Music lives in our long-term memory. As we age, even if we have trouble remembering some basic things such as where our phone, purse, or keys are, songs seem to continue to be 'right there.' Hence, educational concepts or value education learnt through songs are bound to stay with us longer and would have more potential to be recalled when similar topics roll out.

Sustains Emotional Stability

Unlike our childhood, children today have very different struggles, from bullying to dealing with the pressure of performance not just in a single field but in varied, as they deal with an all-rounder syndrome, which is not intentionally planted but has turned out to be so with the competition all around. Music is that self-therapy that meets their emotional struggles. Music can let emotions flow out and release themselves without having to deal with the burden of words to verbalise a feeling or an inner state. In a way, music reinstates a healthy emotional quotient within, which enables a young mind to make wiser decisions when dealing with such pressures.

Enhances Creativity

Nobody is in the box anymore, everyone’s out of it, wanting to do something unique and creative! Be it projects at school, creative writing, or recitation, everything needs to have an element of creativity! A novel idea that pops up in the minds of great artists takes years of intentional effort to let spontaneity be a norm. Such spontaneity in younger children can easily become a daily practice when music floats around. Extending a verse to any song, churning a tune and a song to heighten the joy in any moment, can all unleash the artist within. Just need a spark to light a fire, right?

When we sing, play, and move with music, what physically we can see is the joy that sparkles in a child’s eye but there’s so much more happening right behind that tiny pair. Did you know that in the first three years of life, their brains develop trillions of neural connections, all determined by their experiences? When we give our children musical experiences—in a music class or at home—their brains are developing the musical wiring and circuitry that will help enable them to be musical for the rest of their lives. But the tricky thing is that their brains will drop any connections that aren’t stimulated over and over again – it’s the ‘use it or lose it’ thing! So, keep making music as much as possible—in the kitchen, in the bathtub, at the park, in the car—to keep those musical pathways going!

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Refrain From Quantifying

Beware though not to make music goal-oriented. Support learning through musical immersion. Create musical experiences for your children rather than measuring their musical achievements or judging your own voice. Relaxing and having fun is everything they need in their early years to learn and grow musically. The bond that’s tied with music will hold a special place in your child’s heart. Unique memories that’ll be created on the path of music making while they are growing up, have the potential to be the “golden moments.”

Singing a song from our past can bring back vivid memories and emotions. Music holds the past for us in a way that's really meaningful. And should the memories that our children carry forward be anything short of truly meaningful?

Manvi Siddharth is a music therapist and an educator for a renowned music programme, Music Together. A contemporary dancer and multimedia choreographer with a International Bachelorette in Dance Theatre, Manvi is a conscious parent of two girls. You can follow Manvi’s journey of parenting and daily music making on her Instagram @manvisiddharth