As a parent, it’s only natural to daydream about who a child will be before they’re born. And if you’re a music lover, it’s natural to hope they’ll follow in your musical footsteps. But here’s the frustrating thing about kids: they’re human beings. That means they have these things called “their own interests” that we should “respect.”
Even so, there are still plenty of ways to encourage music interest in your children while still supporting them in their own opinions. Here’s how.
Expose Them to Music
To be clear, we aren’t talking about that weird trend where people played Mozart for babies to make them smarter. (That theory is bunk if you were curious.) We’re talking about bringing music—all kinds of music—into your kid’s life. Here are a few ways to do it:
- Playing music in the car and around the house
- Taking your kid to concerts
- Watching movies where music is featured, such as musicals and operas
- Singing or playing instruments for your kids
- Playing games that involve music, such as freeze dance
- Keeping toy instruments in the house
You can bring your own family’s history or culture into the picture as well by teaching your kids songs that are significant to your family. Cultural and music appreciation? Sign us up!
Allow Your Kids To Explore for Themselves
Let’s say you’re the world’s biggest classic rock fan. You dress your kid in nothing but AC/DC and Nirvana T-shirts and play them “Dark Side of the Moon” as their lullaby, only to find out that they don’t want to listen to anything but K-Pop.
Your first instinct may be to recoil and try to steer your child’s musical vessel back to the rock ’n’ roll aisle. But the more you encourage music they’re not a fan of, the more they’ll come to resent that style and music in general. Allow your kids to explore a wide variety of music, and when they find their genre, rock out with them.
Try Music Lessons
As a proud supplier of music lessons in Portland, Oregon, we will be the first to admit we have a strong bias here. But when we say that music lessons are a great option when you’re trying to encourage music interest in your children, it’s only because we’ve seen it for ourselves.
When your child learns how to create their own music, they get to experience music in a way they never would have by just listening to it. Not to mention, they’ll get the full personal and academic benefits of learning music. Just be sure that your child is actually interested in lessons before signing them up. Before you know it, they’ll be following in your musical footsteps.
