“If I cannot fly, let me sing.” – Stephen Sondheim
When you think about children’s singing lessons, you generally believe that the children who take them have natural vocal talent and love to perform. A child with a singing gift is enrolled in lessons to learn how to properly warm-up their voice, practice, sing, and perform on a professional level. They develop proper vocal skills and techniques to aid their improvement.
However, there are plenty of added benefits to children taking singing lessons, regardless of their vocal talent. Anyone with the ability to talk has the same ability to sing, and there are multiple options to choose from when finding the vocal outlet that’s right for your child. Most voice teachers offer both group and private vocal coach sessions, depending on your child’s comfort level. Most of the skills your child will learn can be utilized throughout other aspects of their life, and really have nothing to do with their singing voice.
7 Reasons to Enroll Your Child in Singing Lessons
HIGHER SELF-ESTEEM
One of the strengths your child would be able to take away from voice lessons is that they build higher self-esteem. Private lessons give children the ability to express themselves, providing a safe and positive environment for freedom when singing and performing without the worries of judgment. Practicing gives way to improvement in their singing and performing, giving your child more confidence, finding that their singing abilities are getting better over time, and making them less afraid to perform in public.
BUILDS BRAIN POWER
Your child will be able to apply the tools and tactics they learn in their voice lessons to their school studies. Yes, you read that right! Singing and music enhance certain skills such as listening better, language, reading comprehension, and even exercises areas of the brain that are utilized for math. Singing lessons provide a positive effect on your child’s academics.
There was a study done by Chorus America evaluating the benefits of singing in children and how it affected their academics. The study proved that the children who sang had a higher academic skill set, as well as enhancing social development for success in life. Children developed valuable life skills, just from singing. Learning music actually changes the structures within your child’s brain, influencing them for decisions later in life.
IMPROVED MEMORY
Along with brain development, children will succeed in retaining improved memory. Practice and repetition of singing in voice lessons, along with the rotation of the same voice warm-ups can attribute to a child’s memory since it becomes routine. The ‘left’ versus ‘right’ brain studies shows that when utilizing the left side practicing singing and music, verbal memory is enhanced as well. Your brain gets trained to remember!
When you work on your memorization skills you improve other areas of your learning as well that include focus and concentration.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Vocal coaching focuses on more than just the singing itself: certain things like articulation and diction, intonation and tone are all factors that are practiced for better and proper singing. Children will develop the ability to recognize patterns in vocabulary. These skills carry out into the world, helping your child to be a better public speaker, reader, and communicator. They can recognize certain body languages and facial expressions on others and adjust their speech to communicate more effectively.
CREATING CONNECTIONS & RELATIONSHIPS
Taking things a step further with communication development – when children take singing lessons, the music usually evokes feelings and finding a connection when singing a song can give children the added benefit of being more susceptible to other people’s emotions. Through enhanced communication skills, children will be able to establish relationships in a much easier fashion. They will have the ability to anticipate responses and reactions from reading body language and picking up on how someone is feeling. Strong connections will be made that can turn into long-lasting friendships.
BOOSTS SELF-DISCIPLINE
Voice lessons require focus, and when taking voice lessons regularly children will be responsible for finding time to practice and study music theory, and possibly even get homework (depending on their instructor) from week to week. If your child has the drive to succeed, he/she will have to work hard to master their song, broadening their range, or complete their theory learning for advancement. This concentration provides the pathway for the learned skill of self-discipline. Children will need to carve out time from their schedule and learn to focus on improving their skills.
Certain habits include learning how to break down and work on tasks. Setting goals like committing to finishing a difficult song with lots of practice feeds into determination and success. Children who take singing lessons will be able to process and create techniques for how to best process information and practice for their next lesson, a great quality that will be beneficial in many other aspects of life as they grow.
FUN FOR THEM
We should not forget the importance of fun in our children’s lives. Certain aspects of their lessons may not seem like work, which is great because it allows them to feel more excited about their singing journey. As parents, we want to encourage the element of fun, and with all of these advantages that stem from taking singing lessons, it’s no surprise that fun is a large factor as well.
Since singing lessons are fun, your child will more likely develop increased commitment to keep growing and learning. If you struggle with having a child interested in singing, there are other ways to introduce music to your child that can grab your child’s attention and peak interest in another aspect of music education, such as learning an instrument or starring in a musical.
There are numerous other reasons that singing lessons are a great route for your child, these here are just some of the best attributes that singing can provide. If you have a child that struggles with more physical activities, seems introverted or shy, or maybe has trouble with reading, you should consider singing lessons as well because it helps move them out of their comfort zone while developing and growing positive life skills and abilities.
WANT TO READ MORE?
Check out this article on The Correlation Between Music and Learning.
