Yes, Niamh, I have seen it… It is very depressing and I agree, I can’t bear to go there

At Disneyland, we don’t try standing in long lines. There are other things to do there. Knowing your child helps let you know if it is all too much and a quiet space is needed. If they are interested in a ride, we go on. If someone’s ready for a nap, I let them and stroll around the park. I understand if this is the big vacation someone has been saving for it is different, and the situation for the caregiver is different as well because it has to take too many personalities into consideration.

I feel if you take kids out, do so on a time frame and pace appropriate for the age, with no real agenda. Then no one is upset.

Elanne, I like the way you explain this…makes a lot of sense. And the exposure sounds wonderful, especially since you are both enjoying it… Good times together!

Hi Janet,

Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate your commitment and devotion to supporting children to develop at their own pace. I think your purity, as you put it, provides a bedrock of support in a culture so driven in the other direction.

It is hard to say what I wish my parents had done with me regarding music. It’s possible that had they done something else I would have another complaint! I certainly understand, more than ever, that as parents we make the best choices we can! I think though that I would have benefited from having a piano in the environment earlier for sure! Whether I would have benefited from earlier instruction is debatable. Maybe yes as I was terribly eager to learn and I don’t think my parents picked up on it. But maybe no as I do know many people who were turned off of music because of forced and misguided instruction, of which there is an abundance.

I think what I would have wanted is an absolute impossibility given who my family was. And that is to have been exposed to and a part of people making music. In the end I wound up singing and playing piano for most of my life, but that was in spite of the fact that there was little of this at home. For whatever reason I came into the world with a pretty good understanding of music and, to some degree, retained it. I know many adults though who love singing but feel they can’t sing or who do have trouble holding a tune or a rhythm or hearing a harmony and it is a source of sorrow and pain for them. For me one of the greatest joys in the world is singing harmonies with other people. It transports me like nothing else. I understand other people’s longing and pain around music as I think it something that our minds, hearts and bodies are wired to engage with as evidenced by babies and toddlers responses to music and sound. It seems like something we are meant to do as much as we are meant to be able to carry on a conversation.

When I was in various African countries I was deeply moved by the amount of music throughout the culture. I never met a person who couldn’t sing. And most everyone I met could easily break into singing with multiple harmonies. It was everywhere — on bus rides, in markets, at home, around fires, in bars — everywhere! Children grew up with music as integral to their lives as talking and breathing.

So I think what I’m getting at with early exposure to music is a little different than other things including dance. It’s more like exposure to language. We know now that children who hear more language as babies and toddlers have more developed language and reading skills later in life. The same is known to be true for music. Children who are around people making music and allowed to participate in it have an understanding of music and it’s structure later in life that can’t be replaced by what they will understand if we wait until they are old enough to articulate a desire to be a part of something more organized. I wish that I lived in a world steeped in music. When I used to live more rurally beautiful music making was a part of everyday. But that is missing in my current life circumstances so opting for an organized setting where people are singing in harmony and playing instruments together seemed like a second best.

Thanks so much for your thoughts and the dialogue.

Elanne, it sounds like you are approaching this with care and sensitivity (which is not surprising knowing you!). I definitely believe that infant and toddler (and even preschool) music classes are totally unnecessary for children to develop a love or talent for music. I actually wrote about this when I first began blogging: https://www.janetlansbury.com/2009/09/in-tune/

If you haven’t noticed, I’m quite a purist about natural development. 🙂 I see infants and toddlers in my class spontaneously chirping and singing and creating “music” by tapping toys together or against the floor. I believe children hear music in the natural sounds around them…birds singing, breezes blowing through the trees, etc. They absorb every detail of their environment and are easily overstimulated.

I think it’s also great for parents to play music that they enjoy, rather than to try to stimulate the infant or toddler. It’s wonderful to share a love of music with our children…play instruments, sing, dance… I love dancing! But I would not enroll a toddler in dance class, because I think lessons at that age actually discourage creativity and can even thwart the enjoyment of these activities.

But if this is a class you and your little one like, direction is minimal, exploration and free play is allowed (instruments aren’t handed to children and then removed from their hands for the next song), it sounds good to me.

Are you saying that you wish your parents had hired a music teacher for you when you were small? Or just had a piano available for you to tinker with?

Great idea, Julie. You won’t regret waiting (as hard as that can be!)

Waiting happens in small ways too. My daughter has been enjoying playing with a large cardboard box. Mostly she hides in it and has fun crawling in and out. I cut some slits in the side of it thinking it would be fun for her to drop things through. Well for months she never even noticed those slits! And then the other day she finally did and spent about 10 minutes dropping something through and retrieving it. She had a great time and of course I was smiling. But she hasn’t done it again! Ha!

Wondering though on what your thoughts are on critical windows of development especially for music. After much thought I decided to take my daughter to a Music Together class. She’s not talking yet so she couldn’t ask for it. But the decision was based on her love of music and dance and my understanding of critical windows for the brain to understand and integrate music in a fundamental way. As well I liked the way the class was offered such that it is the parents who sing and play instruments and the children are free to roam, sit with their parents and participate in whatever way they are moved to participate. In our class the teacher is sensitive and if a child is overstimulated she let the parent know to move to the edge of the room with them or to only stay for part of the class. Many other cultures, some that I have spent time in, are steeped in music and so have no need for an artificial situation in which people are making music together. But that is often absent from our culture. My own experience is that I was a very musically oriented child and my parents waited until I begged to play the piano, but at that point I was past the age in which the brain integrates music in this fundamental way. So while I became a skilled musician, I never felt the kind of fluency that people who were exposed at a young age seem to feel and embody. All that is to say that even though I value the idea of waiting until a child can ask for something I decided to go against that with this music class because to wait would be to let this window of musical language development pass. Curious to hear your thoughts on this.