We know that happy children are children with friends. How do you help your child make friends? Teach them emotional regulation and empathy. Another thing you can do is send them for music lessons.
What are the benefits of sending a child for music lessons?
Music offers numerous benefits of children, and these are just a few of them that we will focus on in this article. Music helps your child:
- learn to read emotions more easily.
- pick up a second language.
- develop memory and learning.
Music Helps Children Make Friends
According to Brain Rules for Baby, children who studied a musical instrument for more than 10 years and began before the age of 7 years old had a lightning-speed ability to pick up the subtle variations in emotion-laden cues, such as the crying of a baby. Children who did not have such rigorous musical training were emotionally tone-deaf. The emotional sensitivity of children who learn music means that they have better “friend-making” skills.
Music Helps Children Learn Other Languages
Music has been linked to the acquisition of a second language in many ways and has been used to help students learn a second language more easily. Just as music helps to sharpen an individual’s ability to discern the subtle variations in emotion-laden cues, it also helps them pick up the different nuances of a foreign language. Music also helps to promote “active listening” which enhances an individual’s ability to learn a new language and lower the “affective filter” that inhibits the individual’s ability to learn the language.
If you don’t have a second language to teach your child, then perhaps letting him learn music might be a good alternative for preparing his acquisition of a second language later in life. I wrote in an earlier post that learning Sign Language can help to develop the language centers of the brain to keep it viable for the future acquisition of languages. Combining Sign Language with music will further refine your child’s ability to pick up other languages later in life since music develops your child’s listening ability.
Music Helps with Memory and Learning
- Playing music increases memory and language skills.
- Playing and listening to music works multiple areas of the brain.
- Music can also improve learning and productivity.
Nurture for the Future 
Hi Shen Li… at what age should kids start to learn music? And what is the best instrument to start with? My boy is 3 yrs old….
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You can start teaching music at any age. The initial part is probably more music appreciation than anything else. There are a lot of simple activities you can do such as listening to a wide variety of music, singing along to rhymes and other songs so your child feels the rhythm, dancing to music is another way to feel rhythm, taking your child to music shops and introducing him to the various different musical instruments (Bentley Music Showroom near the Curve is an excellent place to go), letting them play with noise makers (drums, maracas, castanets, etc.).
At 3 years old, you can start him on Suzuki – which is the only music program I know of that actually starts teaching children how to play a specific instrument. All other music programs appear to be more about music appreciation. So at the end of the day, you have to decide what you want to achieve. As for instrument, that is also up to you and your child. He may display a preference for one over the other if given a chance to explore a variety of instruments. From that perspective it is good to let him see different instruments and to pick a program that allows children exposure to a variety of instruments before locking them into one specific instrument.
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Great sound 😉
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Hi Shen Lin, where can I find the suzuki method for piano lessons in KL. Do you any contacts. I have a daughter age 3yrs now and always wanted her to learn music. I have enquire Yamaha Music school, they don’t accept her :(.. After reading the Suzuki Method and since I’m sending her to Shichida, I would rather choose the Suzuki Method for her now. Please let me if you have any contacts for the piano lessons… desperately looking for one. :)…
Thanks ya.
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Hi Shamini,
The only one I know of who is certified is Lilian Low. I wrote about her here:
http://figur8.net/baby/2010/12/01/music-lessons-the-suzuki-method/
Good luck!
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