Music lessons for kids this summer

Summer is here and parents are looking for ways to keep their kids entertained, engaged and learning.When our children were younger, we comforted them with lullabies and entertained them with nursery rhymes and songs. We shouldn’t stop there. Ideally, we should encourage them to learn how to play a musical instrument may be enroll children in music lessons over the summer.

Music helps develop our children’s creativity, plus a number of other skills that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. Even if they never play for a symphony orchestra, the process of mastering an instrument will develop their mental, emotional and cognitive abilities.

1. Music improves your child’s concentration.
It takes a great deal of focus and patience to master an instrument. Aside from learning how to read notes, your child will also have to pay attention to his posture and factors like rhythm, timing, or even the pressure of his fingers on the instrument.

2. Music improves your child’s coordination.
Playing the piano or the violin may not be as physically rigorous as cricket,football or kabaddi, but these activities do develop hand-eye coordination—not to mention the fine motor skills required in learning how to write.

3. Music provides a good form of stress relief.
Children do get stressed! Adults may think that school is nothing compared to the pressure they go through at the office, but they’re much younger, and still have difficulty understanding and getting a handle on their emotions and fears.

Music can be their way of relaxing. Studies show that playing an instrument can lower heart rates and blood pressure. Plus, the daily practice can be a comforting routine.

4. Music develops your child’s self-confidence.
As your child masters an instrument, he discovers and develops his talents, and gains tremendous self-satisfaction in seeing his progress. He may also enjoy having a skill that other people don’t have—and of course sharing it with other people, and enjoying their praise and admiration. It also helps if your child has the support and encouragement of the adults around him, from his parents to a kind teacher or mentor.

5. Music can make our child smarter.
Studies show that learning music can help improve reading comprehension, mathematics, and cognitive skills like verbal and perceptual abilities as well as spatial reasoning. One landmark research, done by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, show that exposure to musical instruction can lead to higher academic scores.

Researchers believe it’s because reading musical notes and playing instruments involve thinking ahead, visualizing, pattern recognition and using spatial-temporal skills—which children don’t get when they’re just watching TV or using the computer. The spatial-temporal skills are also one reason why music has been linked to mathematical intelligence and abstract reasoning.

Learning to play music well builds creativity, confidence, persistence problem-solving, and other skills that can help children in schoolwork and in life. Regardless of the instrument, every kid should get the opportunity to experience the joy and sense of accomplishment that comes from learning to play.

So let's get the kids signed up for music lessons!what do you say ??