Question

[Amy Brownell]

We have certainly seen the importance of meeting children at their developmental levels so far in this course. I am curious if the research has shown that being constantly pushed or prompted beyond their developmental levels (when adults are unaware of the responses they are giving) can create stressors or anxiety in these children. I feel like it could definitely create some stress if children are being prompted to perform skills that they are not ready for and therefore are not able to complete, which is why all of this information that we have been learning is so important for caregivers to know.

[Erika Svolos]

Hi Amy,

That is a great question. I am going to reach out to Elizabeth as she is well versed in research on devleopment.

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

What an important question, Amy. Thank you for bringing it up. I will need to look for current research, but I think we have lots of annecdotal information on the damage done from adult expectations of skill attainment without developmental understanding. In putting together the Musical Developmental Framework, I was careful to use research that focused on intrinsic musical development rather than learned or aquired skills.
In coming weeks, the training will more fully cover talking to parents, caregivers and other adults about development. I think our sensitivity to development is one reason why music therapists are well situated to provide early childhood music. We also need to talk about music in general. For many adults, they only relate to music as a skill based activity or as something that ‘other people’ can do. The core of this course is that musical development is development and the music self is the self.
One of my go-to resources on all things early childhood development is the Harvard University Center on the Developing Child. Fantastic material! https://developingchild.harvard.edu/. There are a lot of links to articles on young children and stress.

[Amy Brownell]

Thank you so much, I appreciate the information! One of the reasons I moved from the field of music education to music therapy was because I could see there was so much more to music than just practicing to perform, and it was hard to see kids give up on music because they were frustrated or anxious when they did not have the techniques to play band instruments. I love being able to allow and help everyone to make music, no matter what their abilities, and I want to make sure I am not adding any stress by moving on to developmental levels when they are not ready!

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