5 Ways Being a Music Therapist Affects Me as a Parent

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you likely know that I am the proud parent of two beautiful children. My poor children…not only is one parent a therapist, but the other is an educator! It’s a double-whammy in terms of analyzing how to best rear them 🙂

Seriously, though, there’s no way around it. Being a therapist deeply informs who I am and what I do as a parent.

My husband and I have talked a lot recently about what we hope to instill in our children in terms of values, beliefs, and skills. We’re influenced not only by our own knowledge, experience, and mentors, but also by listening to and learning from the likes of Sir Ken Robinson, the “Tiger Mother” (not kidding), and other writers and thinkers.

With that in mind, here are 5 ways I plan to rear my children that are deeply influenced by my knowledge as a music therapist. I share these with you fully understanding and acknowledging that they may turn into “I-was-never-going-to-use-cartoons-as-a-babysitter” types of ideas.

1) As long as you live in my house, you will take piano lessons

My husband and I met a composer who shared some of the house rules he and his wife had set for their children. The first one? As long as you live in my house, you will take piano lessons.

We thought it was brilliant.

Knowing what we know about how important music training is for the developing brain, I can’t see how we can NOT have our kids learn a musical instrument. It’s not that we dream of them having professional music careers, but the skills they will development and learn as a musician will transfer to anything else they decide to do in life.

Why piano? For one, if you can read piano music, you can read almost any other type of music out there. And two, learning to play the piano is like learning to swim. Once you achieve a certain skill level…you can do it for life.

2) Time-Outs are Necessary Breaks

One of the skills I learned working with trauma-influenced children is how to help them calm down and regulate their brains and bodies. And what ways worked really well for most kids? You give them time and you give them space.

Doesn’t that hold true, then, for other children as well (including my own)?

We use time-outs in our household. I don’t view time-outs as punishment. I view them as a chance for my child (and–truthfully–myself) to calm down so we can process and problem-solve the situation. Sometimes time-outs are only 30 seconds long and sometimes they lasts for several minutes. But they help give us breathing room to calm down so we can move forward.

3) Take Ballet Lessons

Although I wasn’t raised in the dance world, I can appreciate the importance of training your body to move. And I feel one of the best ways to train your body to move is to take formal ballet lessons.

Just as with the piano lessons, I’m not necessarily interested in training my children to be professional dancers (though if that’s their passion, I will support it…see #5 below). But I can see how a solid foundation in dance education can help in the development of body awareness, body movement, and a strong core strength.

Plus…aren’t athletes taking ballet training, too?

4) Timing is Everything

There are certain critical periods when it comes to child development. By the time a child is 5, they’ve internalized most of the skills necessary to self-regulate, form healthy relationships, and become a life-long learner. By the time they are 10, they start delving deeper into the skills and activities they are most passionate about. And by the time they 15, you start praying you taught them how to make good decisions, because they start making many of their own.

In the grand scheme of things, you have very little time as a parent to guide and…well, “parent.” And my husband and I don’t have a lot of time left. So we are making a conscious effort to try and expose our children to the best we can offer them…while we are still this strongly influential in their lives.

5) Encourage their Passion

As a therapist, it’s part of my job to recognize the strengths my clients have. Yes, we may work on and “focus” primarily on their needs, but we also draw on and utilize their strengths.

Same for my children. Although they are young, we are starting to see glimmers of what they may have a special talent for. It’s my hope that we are able to foster, support, and encourage their passions, whatever they may be and however they may change over the years.

Tagged as: child development, children, neurodevelopment, parenting