How Music Helps Child Development

Who knows if your child has any musical skills, but finding out can be fun and have the added benefit of aiding their development. Learning a musical instrument can build a child’s confidence, foster creativity and provide a great sense of achievement.

With pre-schoolers, singing nursery rhymes helps with speech and language development that can result in an expanded vocabulary as they learn new songs. It can help with mathematics as music requires counting the beats to keep in time and as most instruments require some level of coordination, it will be developed as well.

Often schools encourage children to play together or in an orchestra which helps them develop social skills and empathy. By having to work together to create the right sound at the right time, children learn how to take their turn and be part of a team. Playing in front of an audience will not only help with their self-expression but it will build their confidence.

As your child sees their musical skills improve, it will give them a real sense of achievement. Children aren’t the most patient of people but when they learn to sing or play a musical instrument they come to learn that persistence brings improvement. That’s a valuable life lesson.

It takes a lot of concentration as well as mind and body control to master a musical instrument. Even if your child doesn’t stick with it, he or she will benefit from their learning.

If your child has talent, their musical ability and constant learning can bring them joy for all of their life.

Of course, you might have a little genius on your hands….

Nutrition And The Development Of Boys

We recently came across an interesting article published last year in the Scientific American “Man-Made: A Baby Boy's Development May Predict a Young Man's Success”. Based on a study started in 1983 it suggests there is a definite link between nutrition of boys in early childhood and the masculinity of young men.

The study followed 770 Filipino men and their growth levels (such as height, weight, muscle mass, strength, testosterone levels and even sexual history) starting with the boys’ first two years of life, then again when they were 8, 11, 14 and then when they reached their early 20s.

In a nutshell, how fast a baby boy grows in the first six months of his life can predict the extent of his masculine characteristics as a young man. Those boys who grew the fastest were mostly breastfed and from wealthier families, therefore with more access to good quality, nutritious food.

And the reason the first 6 months are the most crucial? Well you may not know this, but during this stage in a little boy’s life his testosterone levels are roughly the same as adult levels.

"Men who as babies gained weight rapidly during the period of this testosterone surge matured earlier, were taller, had more muscle, were stronger and had higher testosterone levels,” said Christopher Kuzawa, who led the study.

So that saying “feed the man meat” probably needs to be changed to “feed the baby boy meat” (just make it organic and fat free!)