Growing Up Musical Part 2: Unleashing the Power of Music in Child Development

The music mind and heart podcast returns with a concise and informative look at the different ways music can influence children's emotional, language, cognitive and social development. 

If this topic peaked your interest check out the links below for more information:

https://headstart.gov/curriculum/article/music-child-development

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/11/news-music-power

https://my.chartered.college/impact_article/harnessing-music-psychology-and-music-therapy-to-support-social-and-emotional-development-in-children/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10765015/

N.B Soldier of the Heart should be streaming live on spotify from next week.

To reach out email me at  andreorlandomusic@gmail.com

Transcript

>> Speaker A: 0:01

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Music, Mind and Heart podcast. In the last episode we spent some time with Antiguan singer songwriter Ziva Johan as she talked about her journey growing up musical and pursuing a career in music. Now in this episode we'll be looking at what the science says about growing up musical in the space of four chapters, I I'll be shining a light on the profound impact that music can have on the emotional, linguistic, cognitive and social development of children. And in between, I'll also be sharing some practical tips for parents, educators and caregivers who want to support their charges development through music. So let's dive in. Chapter 1 Music and Emotional Development now, anyone that has spent time with young children knows that the go to method for soothing a crying child is to sing them a song. Be it the tried and true staples like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, something made up on the spot, or songs that might be unique to your own country and culture, these musical interactions, Even though they might seem mundane, are an important part of building the connection between caregivers and infants and stimulating development. Now, I have had the wonderful experience of watching my two nieces grow and develop and music has been a key feature in my interactions with them, especially in their earlier years. Now, when adults use music to help babies stay calm, aside from strengthening the emotional bonds between them, it also helps to support children's development of self regulation. self regulation is simply the ability to manage emotions, physical needs and arousal. It is a critical skill for life. And songs are a great way for children to learn about different emotions. Before infants and toddlers can communicate m how they are feeling, they first have to learn to recognize these emotions themselves. Now, uh, in my music classes with nursery and Reception Children ages 3 to 4, we regularly sing songs like if you're happy and you know it and the wheels on the bus. These children love the opportunity to mimic the crying baby or move around in different ways to show that they are happy. And these opportunities to pretend and play while learning through music are, golden. Singing and making faces to show different emotions, like being angry, sad or happy, can actually help children learn not only how to express those feelings, but also how to recognize those feelings in others. It can also help to teach them the correct language to use to name their emotions. So, parents and guardians, if you want to increase your child's emotional intelligence, ah, good activity that you can do together with them, is to find songs that showcase different feelings and emotions and sing them with your child act them out and talk about them. Because it really helps to develop a child's awareness of emotions not only within themselves, but the emotions of other people. Now we move on to chapter two, music and linguistic development. Now, human beings are hardwired for sound. Our ears are typically fully functional by the 28th day of development in utero. So even in the womb, children can perceive and respond to sound. Research has shown that newborns are able to recognize their mother's voice as well as the voices of persons she regularly came into contact with during pregnancy. Babies and young children need as many opportunities as possible to hear people talking and singing so they can learn the words and the rules of their language even before they are able to speak it. One observation I personally made, um, that I'm sure many parents and caregivers have had as well, is that generally children tend to sing before they can talk. Both my nieces, before they were making any kind of intelligible words, would babble along musically to the songs that they heard on TV or that were being sung to them Now repeating the rhythms and pitches they hear in various songs is a very useful activity for children. It helps them to orient themselves to communicating orally. Songs like I'm a little Teapot with lots of rhyming words can help children to grasp the different sounds of their language. An awareness of rhyme helps to support children as they learn to read in later years. Even doing things like singing simple call and response songs can help young children understand that vocal communication involves taking turns listening and speaking. So singing to your children, spending time with them, interacting with music with songs is really beneficial to their language development Chapter 3 Music and Cognitive Development now, contrary to popular belief, listening to classical music does not make your child a genius or enhance their cognitive development, significantly. Now this belief would have come from a study conducted in 1993 which reported that there was a short term improvement on the performance of children doing certain kinds of mental tasks like folding paper after listening to classical music for a period of time. And the results were highly exaggerated by the press at the time and it came to be what is known as the Mozart effect. Unfortunately, these findings were later debunked as further studies that attempted to replicate the original study showed little evidence that listening to Mozart or any other classical music had any significant effect on spatial reasoning or cognitive development. Even the author of the original study stressed that listening to Mozart has no specific effect on, on general intelligence. So while you can use it to help regulate mood and to expose your children to different stimuli, classical music will not make your child into a, um, modern day Einstein. However, making music, being an active participant in a musical experience can be a fun and engaging way to support cognitive development. very often when children are singing, they are moving and performing various actions as well. It is this active music making where the magic lies. Studies have shown that when babies and toddlers are exposed to these activities, they develop better listening and social skills. Moving to music and playing instruments helps to develop both fine and gross motor skills as well as coordination, listening skills and memory. It also plays an important role in improving the brain's neuroplasticity, which is just a fancy way of saying that it helps the brain's physical structures to become more adaptable to different situations and more resilient to injury or damage. It's also important to recognize that the benefits of musical participation, or learning an instrument can extend to both children and adults. I learned to play the guitar in my early adult years and I can tell you that my manual dexterity increased significantly. So parents and caregivers encourage your children to pick up an instrument, take some music lessons, or at the very least, actively participate in their music classes at school so that they can reap the benefits of sustained music making participation. And if you feel so inclined, join in as well, because there are benefits for you also. Now we're on to chapter four, Music and social development. Now for me, I think it's really important to be intentional with the music that your children are exposed to. Make sure as much as possible that the content is something appropriate, developmental and yes, it can be fun, but should also be something suitable for the child's age. Children absorb information like sponges, especially from the music they listen to. And music can have a powerful effect on children's emotions and their ability to self regulate. Musical experiences help to form part of a child's knowledge and perception of the world around them. So teaching them cultural songs can help them actually develop a sense of pride in their identity and their community. Music and music making can be a very social activity. And in addition to helping to teach children about the world around them, music making in groups can also help children to understand how to socialize appropriately and exist peacefully in the world with others. Group music making, like singing in a choir or playing in a band or making music together as a classroom in school facilitates synchrony, which is when people's movements match up as they move in time together. This synchronization promotes empathy as well as cooperative and helpful behaviors among children. And it is one reason why singing, group drumming, clapping hands, etc are used across cultures in community rituals and classrooms to quickly build group cohesion. And when a group of children clap, sing and uh, march together, moving together to the beat, something measurable happens in their social brain. They feel more connected and they tend to behave more pro socially afterwards. For me as an educator, I often use action songs to help settle and refocus the groups of children in my classroom as well as to help in teaching social skills. So we've basically come to the end of our look at musical development. And to sum up in this episode, we discussed briefly how music has a powerful influence on our cognitive, emotional, social and linguistic development. Now, if you are interested in learning more, I'll be putting some links to some different articles in the description that you can check out on your own time. And if you've been wondering if those piano lessons or guitar lessons that you've been paying for have any benefit, they do. If you've been wondering if taking lessons yourself has any benefit to you, it does. Because research has shown that the positive, uh, effects of musical participation extend well into adulthood and all across the lifespan, really. So music matters. Music participation is the key. Listening to music helps us to learn content, it helps us to understand the world around us. But in terms of actual cognitive development, you've got to sing, you've got to play, you've got to get moving and do something musical. Now the next episode of the Music, Mind and Heart podcast will have a holiday theme. We're going to be exploring some of the psychology behind holiday music in keeping with the, uh, season. To lead us out this week I'll be sharing a pretty previously unreleased song I did a few years back. It's an alternative track called Soldier of the Heart that encourages us to pursue our goals and overcome adversity. If you like it, it will also be available for streaming on Spotify and all the other regular places after the show. So until next time, live, laugh, love and let the music play.