GABRIELLA BIEDINGER - HER LIFE Magazine

herlife | mother’s perspectiveMaking Music withYour Childrenby heather l. noble, ph.d.You do what you can to encourage children to eat healthyfoods and have a balanced diet. After all, today’s food choicesfoster growth for the days, weeks and even years to come.Feeding the mind is equally important, and research hasrepeatedly shown that music is a powerful fuel source forchildren, with countless benefits reaching into adulthood.For many children, music is a point of entry into the world of sounds,which ultimately leads to language development. When children hearmusic, they try to decode the sounds and words. The left side of thebrain is stimulated, which is directly involved in processing language. Thebrain’s circuits are then wired to reflect the variety of sounds encountered,in addition to supporting the child’s flexibility with self-expression skills.A child learns how intonation, rhythm and volume vary. These skills arefoundational for social competence.Music is also an appropriate outlet for emotion. Children learn howto express themselves, through creating their own music, in additionto understanding others’ emotions when listening to others’ creations.Children then appreciate the value for communication, both expressiveand receptive. Listening skills are especially valuable for discerning others’emotional states from their speech and any other sounds they mightchoose to make. Music is then known as a tool to convey emotion, butalso it can be appreciated as a powerful method for impacting others’emotions. It can lift one’s spirits or calm one’s fears.Some research studies have actually measured an increase in IQpoints for elementary school-age children who attend weekly music lessons.Their minds are stimulated for curiosity and the enjoyment of learning.Studies in neuroscience have evidenced that children who participatein learning and making music have larger development in neural activityas compared to others who do not train in music. Inherently, if you arecreating music, this activity requires greater use of the brain. So, extensiveneural circuits are built, fine-tuned and repeatedly used.Music also provides ample opportunity to build and practice concentrationand memory. Music training requires an adept focus for learning,creating and appreciating all the sounds made. Sounds are then storedin memory and recalled at later times, such as the lyrics or melody of asong. There is ample opportunity to practice effective memory storageand retrieval.The intellectual skills used for music transfer to many achievementrelatedskills as well. The understanding of music assists children toconsider how many pieces fit together to form a whole, and how multistepproblems might be examined and pieced together to find solutions.These are required skills for the academic arena, including mathematics,engineering, science, the arts and working with computers.Music is of value at any age. The key to including it in children’slives, and having it benefit them, is to be mindful of any and all expectationsfor those involved. There is a growing amount of evidence thatbirth to age nine is an optimal “window of opportunity” for develop-44 HERLIFEMAGAZINE.COM