Childhood is a time of profound wonder, a once-in-a-lifetime period when a person is completely open to new stimuli and new experiences, and when the brain is still being formed by the world around it. This is one of the reasons kids are so drawn to bright colours, cheerful melodies, interesting shapes, and fantastical stories: everything is new to them, and they are just starting the process of discovering what it means to be human.
Research has shown time and time again that the more resources children — and especially young children — have to explore their environment, the more they will be able to take in.
This is one of the reasons so many parents choose to enroll their kids in music lessons. A seven- or eight-year-old can take in new information and master patterns much faster than they will at perhaps any other point in their life, so giving them an opportunity to expand their horizons by studying music can have a profound effect.
If you are interested in giving your children an opportunity to be creative, here is how signing your child up for lessons at a music school can change their life.
Structured Music Education has Numerous Benefits
One of the joys of being a parent is watching your children discover who they really are. But sometimes you need to expose them to a variety of opportunities before you discover their hidden passions, which is why giving little ones an opportunity to explore different arts is a good idea.
Music lessons also have concrete benefits aside from the intrinsic creative pleasure that comes with mastering an instrument. As a significant amount of research has shown, music lessons can:
- Develop confidence and leadership skills
- Help kids become more creative
- Boost social skills
- Cultivate patience
- Become more disciplined
- Express themselves in healthy and life-affirming ways
For this reason, If you want your child to grow into a well-rounded adult, music lessons can actually play a major role in developing a range of fundamental skills.
Lessons Provide a Solid Foundation in Music Skills and Theory
In some cases, parents resist sending their kids to music school programs because they worry that forcing children to engage in activities they aren’t passionate about can be harmful.
While it’s true that you don’t want to force your kids to do anything against their will, even a child who doesn’t show great devotion to music can benefit from taking lessons early in life, for the simple reason that a solid grounding in music can be extremely helpful should they become interested in music in their teenage years or in adulthood.
If you choose a school that provides instruction by university-trained teachers (for example, Toronto Arts Academy offers professional music lessons from instructors who have all studied music at the post-secondary level), you can be sure that even if your child decides not to continue after a year they will have gained a solid grounding that could be of use later in life.
For many people, music is an essential part of a good life, and listening to and playing music is a worthwhile end in itself. But music lessons have also been shown to correlate strongly with academic success across the board, and perhaps the strongest argument for why music lessons can change your child’s life is simply that all evidence suggests that the most well-rounded and successful kids spend at least some time every week playing music.
This year, give your child a gift they’ll be able to appreciate for the rest of their life, and enroll them in a music school for kids near you.
