Guidelines for Grown-Ups
When you’re singing with a group of people, it’s your voice your child notices most. Similarly, when you’re talking with a neighbor, your child will attend to that; he doesn’t have the auditory filter to “tune you out” in order to hear the music. So please participate in our songs and movement to your fullest – the better the participatory model your child has, the better their music education is.
Did you know that your child’s most favorite voice in the world is yours? Your child is attuned to your voice above all others, whether you’re speaking words or singing a song.
One of the most challenging times for us ALL to remember to stay with the musicality of our classroom experience is when we feel we have to manage or redirect a child’s behavior, so I want to touch on classroom behavior expectations for you here, too.
First of all, I want you all to know that 90 percent of the time your child’s behavior will be perfectly ok in class! In other words, you might feel an urge to correct your child’s play or participation in class in some way, but 90 percent of the time, a correction won’t be required.
One of the “rules” of Music Together classes, for us teachers, is “Accept and Include.” – so if your child has decided to waggle a rhythm stick in the air, for instance, instead of “playing them properly”, I don’t want you to redirect them at all. Instead, we might even “accept” your child’s way of playing the instrument, and you might hear me say “let’s play them Sophia’s way!” on the next verse. This does two very positive things for your child’s musical learning – it’s a first lesson on improvising on a theme, for one thing, and it also teaches them that this is about PLAY, not expectations or performance. At this stage of their musical development, all young children are experimenting, improvising, being silly, and hopefully enjoying themselves too! And as it turns out, this is the very best way for their musical development and learning to go at the moment. So – not much redirection will be needed at ALL, 90 percent of the time.
Later, after they have established Basic Music Competence, then there will be a time for more formalized instruction, perhaps even with an expectation of a “performance.” But Music Together classes are not formal classes or performance – based classes. The important traits of a Music Together class include the engagement and participation of the children’s favorite grown-ups, and play. These are the best ways for the young child’s brain to take in music education and soak it all up like a sponge – in much the same way that they learn and acquire language, they learn and acquire their musicality and Basic Music Competence.
Ten percent of the time, a behavior MAY need to be redirected, though – and I want to offer you some guidance for those ten percent of times:
If your child is in another family’s space and the family communicates that it is not ok (often our families love to dance with a new friend through so don’t assume it’s not ok. :)) – or, if a child is throwing something – or, if a child is about to injure himself or someone else in class, or is at risk of damaging classroom property, etc – you get the idea – these are the rare times where you will need to redirect your child to a safer behavior. If your child is doing any of these things, please physically come and lovingly scoop your child up and try dancing over to a different area of the class 🙂 If you can, keep singing and dancing while you physically redirect! If this musical, physical, playful redirection doesn’t work after an attempt or two, feel free to dance out to the lobby and take a little break. 🙂 The most important thing to remember when you need to intervene is to please refrain at all times from talking loudly to your child over our music class– instead of saying “stop – don’t do that, Johnny!” – go over to Johnny and sing “lets go this way” or whatever musical, movement-based redirection comes most naturally for you.
Whether due to a budding conversationalist, an urge to socialize during the play-along, or to rediract behaviour, it is always, always important to remember that YOUR CHILD IS HARD WIRED to hear your voice above everything else – so please sing, dance, play, but refrain from talking. We have 45 minutes to give your child and everyone else’s children the very best musical education that we can – talking can wait. When a parent talks over the music, it distracts every child and grownup in class. So this is an important rule to remember for everyone’s sake.
Physically working and moving with children for 45 minutes is a workout sometimes for sure! I promise I get it. 🙂 You always, always have my permission to bring a second grownup to class to help, for this reason. Music class can be a lot of work!
Thank you all for reading! I’m so excited that you are joining us to make Music Together!
I’ll see you and your littles in class. 🙂
Ms Laura
