theguardian Winner of the Pulitzer prize
UK world sport football opinion culture economy lifestyle fashion evironment tech money travel
Social Care Network Lauren Sutherland Wednesday 11 March 2015 18:40 BST
Music Therapy: An insight into the positive affects. Parents are choosing to use music therapy to aid their childrens educational development. Kindermusik is one of many programmes that portray the positive affects. Here’s their story:
Lyla, aged 5 copying movements at Kindermusik, York. Photograph: Lauren Sutherland.
Music is widely used as a form of therapy in order to act as or assist medicine for patients suffering with both physical and mental disabilities. Upon expansion, research has shown that therapies can also have positive effects on children and the elderly. These therapies contribute to the fundamental human process and do not get enough credit. Many individuals are not familiar with these therapies because they haven’t experienced them. When the mind listens to music, something unexplainable happens which changes our current mood state - a similar effect can occur when undertaking occupational or art therapy. Occupational and art therapy are amongst many that can influence positivity throughout a patient’s experience. These valuable music programmes are being practiced within institutions, but have not received the praise that music therapy has. The acknowledgement begins with facilities that practice within Yorkshire. Businesses such as ‘Kindermusik’ – a worldwide children’s music and movement programme are designed to reinforce the power of therapy. The international company practices in seventy countries and has at least two million kids enrolled. According to their website, “Kindermusik takes musical learning to the next level; our curriculum is proven to improve a child’s brain development.” Much like music therapy, the children listen and learn through music as they are building their confidence with instruments, sounds, words and actions.
browse all sections
theguardian Winner of the Pulitzer prize
UK world sport football opinion culture economy lifestyle fashion evironment tech money travel
Social Care Network Lauren Sutherland
Wednesday 11 March 2015 18:40 BST
Music Therapy: An insight into the positive affects. Parents are choosing to use music therapy to aid their childrens educational development. Kindermusik is one of many programmes that portray the positive affects. Here’s their story: Cath Smithson, an enthusiastic Kindermusik teacher who runs sessions based in York’s City Centre describes the purpose of the programme: “(the children) start off tiny tiny and by the time they’re seven they’ve had a basic foundation for music, so they’re learning glockenspiel and dulcimer and recorder and so they’re ready to go on to formal music education.” The sessions are accessible to 0-7yr olds as an option for preschool or after school learning. The classes are taught almost every day and last for an hour. Kindermusik is optional depending on how often the parents/children would like to attend, which is great as there are no financial commitments like most others. The criteria reforms each session to introduce new learning styles to the children, making it more enjoyable and stimulating. Cath highlights that, “in the Seventies, the Americans got their child developmental psychologists and neuroscientists on the case and made the curricula suitable for the different developmental stages” proving the theory that music plays a substantial part in children’s development. www.kindermusik.com outlines the benefits of choosing its programme for your children: “When young children are consistently engaged by music in an ageappropriate, socially accepting environment, they benefit at many levels: Reading. They gain the phonological processing, spoken language, and comprehension skills that are the foundation of reading. Quantitative. They build the spatial-temporal and reasoning skills required for math, science, and engineering. Social. They develop social and emotional skills that are essential for school readiness—like the ability to regulate their responses and relate to others in complex ways. Physical. By moving and dancing to music and playing simple instruments, children improve their gross and fine motor skills. Creative activities that encourage freedom within a fun and friendly structure spark their creativity.” Upon arrival, the children are greeted with a warm hello and a genuine smile. They are asked to take their shoes off and sit on a blanket full of books, toys and musical instruments. Soft music is played in the background to get them to focus on what’s in front of them.
browse all sections
theguardian Winner of the Pulitzer prize
UK world sport football opinion culture economy lifestyle fashion evironment tech money travel
Social Care Network Lauren Sutherland
Wednesday 11 March 2015 18:40 BST
Music Therapy: An insight into the positive affects. Parents are choosing to use music therapy to aid their childrens educational development. Kindermusik is one of many programmes that portray the positive affects. Here’s their story: A couple of children come in the arms of their parents, tired and crying but as soon as they hear the rattles and laughs their mood changes immediately. Excited and enthused, they all join in together – sharing books and toys.
Kindermusik supplies a variety of books, toys and instruments for the children to use. Photograph: Lauren Sutherland.
Cath decorates the room with vibrant picture cards and lyrics for the children to sing along. Music has encouraged positive affects on the young child’s mind. Parents sing lullabies and nursery rhymes to their children as a home remedy to create a calmer environment and to soothe the mind. Kindermusik implicates the same techniques as Cath sings simple instructions to the children: “Books in the bag, please, books away” helping to guide the cleaning activity, making it appear less negative. The group and their parents all gather to sit in a circle in order to introduce themselves. Focusing on one child at a time, Cath directs all her attention to them as she asks how they would like to ‘say hello’. hello, hello.” This activity is great for children of this age as it allows their minds to think of sounds or actions they can create using just their body for example: stomping, jumping, clapping, tapping, waving or running.
browse all sections
theguardian Winner of the Pulitzer prize
UK world sport football opinion culture economy lifestyle fashion evironment tech money travel
Social Care Network Lauren Sutherland
Wednesday 11 March 2015 18:40 BST
Music Therapy: An insight into the positive affects. Parents are choosing to use music therapy to aid their childrens educational development. Kindermusik is one of many programmes that portray the positive affects. Here’s their story: The group collectively sings “It’s our time to ‘wave’ to ‘child’s name’ to say hello, hello.” Not only is this enjoyable for the children but they must learn to multitask singing with the chosen action stimulating brain activity. Shortly after musical instruments such as castanets, egg shakers, mini tambourines, bells and chimes that are completely safe for all age groups are distributed. A specially designed Kindermusik song is chosen, which corresponds with the instruments and the children must listen to the musical sounds to figure out what instrument is the correct one. The parents then congratulate them on choosing the correct one and they all play along with the music, singing and dancing. This creates a safe, gratifying environment for children to practice a technique called guided discovery, advancing the connection between actions, sounds and objects but most importantly strengthening the parent-child bond. Cath emphasises, “(I’m) teaching parents how to use music to help them learn in all kinds of other ways.” Kindermusik helps to form a stronger connection between the parents’ influence in their children’s learning journey. The process of develeoping together makes everything more special. As the activities vary, the group is able to get up and move around with their parents. Games are introduced as they practice the common childhood game of ‘musical statues’ called ‘stop and start’. The teacher guides their movements as she constantly changes their current motor skills from: hopping to skipping to jumping to running and the children have to hold their position when commanded to stop. The great thing about this as a therapy is that music isn’t always essential. Kindermusik expresses the combination of occupational and music therapy and projects the advantages. Alongside the fun and games is story-time. Books about farmyard animals are sung to the children instead of just read, which adds an entertaining element. This enables them to reciprocate the noises the animals stimulating their knowledge as they use their voices to adjust tones and pitch.
browse all sections
theguardian Winner of the Pulitzer prize
UK world sport football opinion culture economy lifestyle fashion evironment tech money travel
Social Care Network Lauren Sutherland
Wednesday 11 March 2015 18:40 BST
Music Therapy: An insight into the positive affects. Parents are choosing to use music therapy to aid their childrens educational development. Kindermusik is one of many programmes that portray the positive affects. Here’s their story: Combining music and education is what Kindermusik accomplishes with success. To make education fun, games are played such as rabbits in the hole – as they use the music and movement to pretend to be rabbits and jump into their hula-hoops (aka holes) when the music stops. It is evident that the time spent participating in Kindermusik is relevant to their school progression as they learn to explore their motor skills and senses.
Having consistent parental participation within the program allows for children to seek guidance from and communicate with them in a different way, strengthening the confidence they place in each other. Kindermusik helps put forth a healthier relationship between parent and child in their everyday life as confidence and reliability is reinforced. When the classes are finished, the parent’s can download all the content from the sessions and revisit it at home. “(The parents) have got a whole set of home materials so, all the digital stuff you can download all the music and burn it to CD, you have all the video clips and parental information and activities and games. Says Cath, “they have this forever to keep revisiting, and so it’s only through consolidating it at home that they learn lots and lots.” Colours, shapes and patterns are great motivators for children as they help to regain focus when it’s lost. Coloured scarves were handed out to each of the children as they played a game of ‘blowing in the wind.’ By influencing children to play with brightly coloured objects, it enables other forms of learning as they are remembering different colours, whilst being creative with how to create movements that they imagine to resemble the weather. The element of fun is a continuing theme throughout the Kindermusik programme, alongside education and learning. It is important for children to maintain this balance to improve their brain development process.
browse all sections
theguardian Winner of the Pulitzer prize
UK world sport football opinion culture economy lifestyle fashion evironment tech money travel
Social Care Network Lauren Sutherland
Wednesday 11 March 2015 18:40 BST
Music Therapy: An insight into the positive affects. Parents are choosing to use music therapy to aid their childrens educational development. Kindermusik is one of many programmes that portray the positive affects. Here’s their story: Within the session, children are copying movements, words, phrases, songs and sounds as they are being taught, which shows visual aids significantly improve learning. Instead of being taught in a large classroom full of children where communication being teacher and pupil can get lost - the children are being focused on individually, allowing for a healthier, productive learning environment. The children feel more free to express when their parents are involved, which makes the programme a lot more unique as it’s something the family can do together. When asked how important is it for parental involvement, Cath responds: “really important. That’s one of the key things for Kindermusik is the parents are their first teacher and their best teacher and home is the best place to do lots of learning so we’re encouraging them to take the music away, take the ideas away, go home and just keep singing, keep dancing and make music an everyday thing.” Music is not always used in an energetic way. The children are allowed to choose one soft animal, be that a monkey, a rabbit or a bear and a slow, melodic song is played as they have “quiet time.” This part of the session allows children to lay down with their parents and have a few minutes of ‘rocking’ and cuddling. By doing this, it changes the emotional state children are in and calms them down – allowing them to spend quality time with their parents. The influence of animals means that there is an educational purpose and their home comforts are still involved. In doing this, children will also understand the difference between various music genres and acknowledge that fast tempo songs require a certain amount of energy and slow tempo songs require slow and calm movements. The influence of music is a powerful thing. When asked why it was important to use music as a therapy Cath responded, “It’s a great vehicle for learning as you saw here, for the physical and for the language. They’re using the rhythm of language and the phrases and for the emotional and for the social - working together and listening. Every area of learning, you can cover lots and lots through music helping them with their self control and helping them to control their bodies, their voices.”
browse all sections
theguardian Winner of the Pulitzer prize
UK world sport football opinion culture economy lifestyle fashion evironment tech money travel
Social Care Network Lauren Sutherland
Wednesday 11 March 2015 18:40 BST
Music Therapy: An insight into the positive affects. Parents are choosing to use music therapy to aid their childrens educational development. Kindermusik is one of many programmes that portray the positive affects. Here’s their story: Deciding to use the influence of music at a young age can successfully aid the child’s development in a variety of ways. Not just for the psychological, but also for the physical. Music is a harmless source, which can be accessed easily and at a low cost,whether it is practiced through a programme like Kindermusik or in a home environment.
Grace enjoying a lay down after an energetic sessin at Kindermusik. Photograph: Lauren Sutherland.
The positive affects are not to be dismissed. Cath agrees, “ If it’s fun and if it’s active, if they’re using all their senses, then they’re going to remember it better. It’s through doing and through seeing and hearing and listening and playing that they can start to understand the different concepts. It just helps them to learn.” Towards the end of the session, the children are able to get energetic again. They are once more given a variety of music instruments and are told to play as they please. Consistency is key, and as they once sang hello to each other they now sing goodbye. Once again, the children are individually focused on and chose a style in which they would like to say goodbye. This concept is a fun way for children to socialize with one another and to make friends within an educational environment. Although many parents will question why Kindermusik is essential, as children already learn through school or nursery – the difference here is that music therapy is the main influence. It allows for all of the positive connotations that have been attached to music throughout many years to impact on a young child’s mind and body.
browse all sections
theguardian Winner of the Pulitzer prize
UK world sport football opinion culture economy lifestyle fashion evironment tech money travel
Social Care Network Lauren Sutherland
Wednesday 11 March 2015 18:40 BST
Music Therapy: An insight into the positive affects. Parents are choosing to use music therapy to aid their childrens educational development. Kindermusik is one of many programmes that portray the positive affects. Here’s their story: These classes have been uniquely designed, specifically to benefit children and help build the foundations for their future. Children develop more through their parent’s actions and instructions. They need guidance, someone showing them what’s right and wrong. They need structure, safety and reliability in order to achieve. Programmes such as Kindermusik have shown that learning doesn’t have to be boring. Children, more often than not, come home from school and complain about writing or mathematics or science. Education doesn’t have to be a nightmare. Improvements can be made. If you’re a parent reading this article and you’re feeling pessimistic, just give a programme like this one a chance. One chance to improve your child’s learning journey. There’s really nothing to lose and everything to gain.
For more information about Kindermusik please visit: www.kindermusik.com For more videos involving kindermusik sessions click here.
browse all sections