Most Valuable Take Away

My most valuable takeaway from this week’s content is the importance of knowing and understanding the various milestones of development in children. Understanding the markers of development informs our practice by influencing our view of the child, which helps us to choose developmentally-appropriate music therapy interventions.

Sorry- my comment posted twice….. I deleted the second one here.

Since I have been practicing for about 10 years, most of this information was not new to me. That being said, I found it so refreshing and I loved the presentation!

I kind of wished I had heard it this way the first time. From actually pausing the video to take a moment and imagine ourselves in that developmental space, to visualizing our scarf child growing – I loved how tangible the information was.

Laying on the floor, man, that was a huge reminder of how the world is perceived 0-3 months.

However, my biggest take a way was the reminder that parents may not always know the milestones and what is or is not developmentally appropriate. I found myself thinking, “wow, yeah, couple that with the pandemic and that truth is even more compounded.” I found myself seeing ways in which we could be empowered to be helpful guides not only for our little clients, but for their parents and caregivers too. I really appreciated sitting with that mentality as I listened this week.

Thank you both for your insights and takeaways.

I think my most valuable takeaway is how simple the early development and the things we do with people that small can be. Sometimes I get carried away when I’m program planning thinking I need things that are flashy but that that can actually be contraindicated with early development.Who knew a simple bell could be a) so engaging, b) used so many ways and c) so completely developmentally appropriate. I think many parents of small kids can relate to this- not realizing how they can really engage with their kids and how simple it can be. When my daughter was born we appreciated that one of the resources we were gifted was a Montessori based play mat that came with a parent guide month my month for the first twelve months that explained where our child was developmentally and how to engage her with the toys. I work with children and this was all news to me. And I think something to DO thats engaging for grownups and little is often what brings them into class. I sprinkle a little info into all my classes but the more I know, the more I can pass forward to other parents and I appreciate having a condensed resource to refer to!

I would say that my biggest takeaway from this week’s learning was the milestones of development. Going into this course, I didn’t have a lot of knowledge on the milestones and the videos explained and laid everything out really clearly which was helpful for me in conceptualizing them. I feel that the list of milestones provides a groundwork for planning interventions for specific groups because you know what to be expecting developmentally from the group when planning. Before this lesson, I did my best to guesstimate what I should do and really leaned into being adaptable, but this framework will be a huge help!

My biggest takeaway was to remember every child is different and they can all be different within their developmental milestones. It’s also important to remember these milestones when advocating for the child you work with so parents and other caregivers can help the child where they’re at not where they are assumed to be.

While the content of the course this week is not new to me, I found that I really do still love diving into the developmental stages and the various rates which children reflect them. My biggest take-away is the reminders that parents might not know the nuances of the developmental stages and that how we design musical interactions can be so powerful (and empowering) for parents who might be secretly comparing their child to others. Listening to how Elizabeth and Meredith talk about each area with joy reminds me how important our role modeling can be for parents and caregivers during these young years. And, it is just as important to recognize when there might be need for concern when a child is missing critical milestones. Our sensitivity, rapport, and trust with the parents is just as important as it is to have with the children.