Parent-Child Bonding Through Music
The first year of a child’s life is extremely important. This is when the bond is formed between parents and babies. This is when children grow to trust their parents and lean on them for completely support and all of their needed care. This bond will extend throughout the child’s lifetime and will make all parenting duties stretching into the future a lot easier to handle.
There are a lot of little things that help form this bond during that first year of life. The way a father touches his baby on the head and kisses his child’s cheeks help form that bond and trust. The way a mother stares into the eyes of her baby while feeding in the middle of the night also helps form the bond.
Simple things like the way a parent’s eyes light up when a child toddles into the room and the way a parent interacts with the child during playtime can also be catalysts for a very strong bond.
Many of these things just naturally occur between parents and a new baby during that first year of life, but there are other things that parents may do to help strengthen the bond. Music is one of the best tools to make this happen.
Music & Emotion
Music evokes emotion in human beings. This is why someone going through a divorce may spend a lot of time listening to sad, slow love songs or country music that expresses heartache. This is why college kids enjoy fast paced dance music that is easy to hop around to on the dance floor.
Babies feel the same type of emotion when they listen to music. This is why parents often use very soft, soothing music in the nursery to help babies fall asleep and stay asleep for longer periods of time. There are tons of lullaby CDs and music collections on the market as well as DVDs that combine soothing naptime music with images designed to evoke sleep.
Babies can feel excited and happy when they hear upbeat music as well. They may not understand the lyrics just yet, but the tone of the music can excite them, make them sleepy, or even scare them.
Musical Interaction
Lullaby CDs and DVDs can be useful, but they don’t allow parents to interact with the child in a musical way. When parents take advantage of music programs with their babies, they can use music to strengthen that parent-child bond right out of the womb.
A music program that caters to young babies and even infants will typically create a mommy-and-me or daddy-and-me environment where parents can enjoy each music session along with their baby. This gives the parent and baby a chance to bond and experience the evoked emotions together.
These musical sessions are tons of fun for parents because they get to see their baby respond to the different music presented and even make some music on their own. Even small infants can benefit from this type of interaction.
Musical Exposure
Another benefit to participating in early musical programs for parents and babies is simply the musical exposure that the baby receives. They learn to appreciate and enjoy music right from the beginning of their life. This may give them a greater musical ability and appreciation as they grow older. This is especially true if they continue receiving exposure to music and opportunities to make their own music as they get older.