Many people ring in a new year with a fresh set of resolutions such as to pursue a long-held interest in music. They may suddenly have the gumption to learn the guitar or a predilection for the piano in 2024. With a little fine-tuning, a musical resolution could become a family affair.
Just as mutual interests in hobbies and sports can strengthen parent-child relations, a love of music is another potential bonding experience at just about any age.
Beth Hankins, the orchestra director at Lakewood High School, suggests that a familial love of music may begin even before a child is born.
“Mothers, when they sing to their child, they usually hear music while they’re in the womb and that automatically kind of creates a connection,” Hankins says. She cites the Suzuki method of learning music as a potential approach to building a musical bond between parent and child.
Hankins explains under this method, the parent learns the same stringed instrument as their child at the same time. Advocates of this method compare a child’s ability to learn music to how they instinctively learn the language of their parents through listening and mimicking.
Children can begin the method with their parents as early as age 3.
Dr. Jen Yensel, clinical director with The Cole Center in Brecksville and Cuyahoga Falls, adds that parent-child bonding over music can begin at an early age by making sounds together with spoons, pots, and pans. That bond may carry through adolescence by talking about musicians or attending concerts together.
Music also provides a platform to build a child’s self-esteem and to foster empathy between a parent and child.
Yensel explains a parent asking their child to describe what they have learned in their music lessons allows the child to become the “expert” in a subject. The child then becomes the teacher to their parent, which is a role reversal opportunity that they might enjoy while boosting their confidence. If a parent is learning an instrument, it might provide them with a degree of insight as to what their child experiences in rehearsing for a school recital or concert.
Early exposure to music offers other benefits to children beyond them developing a good ear for tunes.
Julie Chabola, owner of Kindermusik at Western Reserve, says encouraging a child’s musical interest in their formative years helps them develop vital cognitive, motor, speech and socialization skills.
While some families may want to jump right into their musical pursuits, Chabola advises parents to weigh the three “Cs” of cost, commitment and cusp beforehand. Can families afford the cost? Do their schedules permit the necessary commitment? What is the appropriate age-level class for their child if they’re on the transitional cusp of ages?
Families who pursue their love of music together may discover a learning and leisure activity that can bind generations of any age.
Devon Caskey, the music lessons coordinator at Woodsy’s Music in Kent, and Vera Holczer-Waroquet, the founder and director of the Aurora School of Music, both agree about the power of parental involvement.
Caskey is teaching viola lessons to a father while his daughter is taking violin lessons with another instructor at Woodsy’s Music.
“I know that it has helped both with practicing,” he says. “Because they’re both beginners, they can kind of lean on each other.” The father-daughter duo is enjoying their joint learning experience so much that they share the goal of performing holiday duets someday.
The Aurora School of Music is the alma mater of another unique musical duo. Holczer-Waroquet says that a 95-year-old mother and her 65-year-old daughter recently took dual piano lessons at the school. “That was the coolest thing ever.”
Musical pursuits tend to lead to more parental involvement in a child’s day-to-day life than if the child was not participating in an extracurricular activity, Caskey says. Music opens opportunities for a parent to engage their child in discussions regarding their lessons, recitals and experiences overall.
While parental involvement can take many forms, from instrument rental to chauffeuring to lessons, Caskey and Holczer-Waroquet urge parents to accommodate at-home practice sessions.
Caskey cautions that weekly music lessons span a mere half hour.
“While that half-hour lesson is important for that one-on-one check-in with the instructor, most of the magic happens at home,” she adds.
Holczer-Waroquet suggests parents be their child’s biggest cheerleader and allow them to experiment musically. Practicing together should be fun and not a controlled, disciplined time under the parent, she says.
“Families that have parents involved in music and children involved in music and playing together – if that happens at home – that’s magical. When you start doing ensembles as a family, that’s really, truly magical,” Holczer-Waroquet says.
