Share some of your experiences with children of this age and level.

[Julie Palmieri]

Share some of your experiences with children of this age and level.

[Sean FitzGerald]

Personally, I do not have a ton of experience with children at 0-18 months of age. The youngest client I have worked with was 2 1/2 and I a couple of developmental areas that were mentioned in this course, as I described earlier. One part of this weeks content that I did utilize was communicating with the parents and when their child wasn’t doing everything I asked of them, I reassured them that its okay and that being in the space with me is progress in and of itself too! Working to help parents break down the self deprecating feelings is huge and I think can be very helpful to not only developing trust in your relationship with them, but also in developing trust in themselves to foster a positive parent to child relationship.
Though I have not run any classes, I have observed two Sprouting Melodies classes at RMTS and they were interesting to watch, It was fun to see how children that young interacted musically and how the environment was not only beneficial to the children’s development and engagement, but also to the parents engagement and socialization.

[Kayla Stubblefield]

Great insight!

[Jorden Liteplo]

This is so important! when parents see the ways their child does NOT engage its so wonderful to be able to point out the ways they DO. I suspect this can help reduce parent coping with a diagnosis and feel better equipped to support a child.

[Jorden Liteplo]

So prior to the pandemic, most of the experience I had was with children over the age of 12 months. When Covid shut everything down, my daughter was born two weeks into lockdown. Some of my other mom friends begged me to create a class for their children, who ranged between four months and nine months. I wish I had known about this course, when I was struggling to create my own curriculum. When I started I was literally running classes with my daughter strapped to me so I was IN this vulnerable parent phase as I was running classes. I think this had a huge influence on how I looked at developing my classes.

I find my favourite class to run is the under six months. I had really noticed that when we had an up to 12 month class, anytime we got a tiny baby in the class The parent would be overwhelmed by the older more mobile babies, doing things like poking at their baby, and I had a few parents say things along the lines of there was a really large gap between their child and other children. This is largely exacerbated by the fact that we have really small class sizes (5-6) and would likely not affect larger community groups the same way. They also mentioned wanting to connect with parents in a similar age/ stage. So I started separating classes into 0-6 month and 6-12 month groups. What a game changer. Obviously it depend on each group And how close babies are to six months like was mentioned in the class whether they are kind of ready to move in with the older kids or not, but generally this class runs much slower way more focussed on snuggles and kisses and bonding time and sensory stimulation and Music response like head turning in visual tracking. It’s hands-down my favourite group to run because it’s just so nice and gentle calming and the babies in this group have so much development in the weeks that I work with them.

I have found that this gap in development is much less pronounced for parents after 18 months.

[Erika (TeamRH)]

Great insights! I offered a 0-3 months class which typically brought in first time parents. It really provided so many families a place to connect with others experiencing parenting for the first time and the challenges that come with that. Many came to me after going to a 0-12 month classes and sharing similar feelings you shared. I found my families with 2 or more children had infants were able to tolerate the stimulation levels in multi-age family classes. It seemed they were already use to lots of stimulation from having older siblings.

[Kayla Stubblefield]

Thanks for sharing. I totally agree that this training has a huge influence on early childhood music therapy and how we facilitate that!

[Leah Strand]

I have very little experience with children in the age range discussed this week. Although I don’t have much experience to share yet I can express the value for this weeks videos. It was really nice to start and think about those who join the classes t different times and how I may adapt my planned activities for them while also keeping pace with the more seasoned group members. Also the communication with he parents, very nice to get examples of our roles in their parenting journey. We as music therapists are there if parents need us and are here to help when things get confusing or frustrating, or even when things are going great. I love being a supportive resource.

[Jorden Liteplo]

That is everything as a new parent.

[Angie Snell]

Leah, I wish Sprouting Melodies was available before I started servicing early childhood groups. The developmental framework and the focus on including the families is so valuable.

[Erika (TeamRH)]

For those that do not have experience with this age range, yours skills and background from music therapy will be a great aide as you begin your work in this area.

[Kayla Stubblefield]

I was very lucky to have time in my internship to facilitate music therapy in the daycare at the school. The children were the staff and faculty’s children that they were able to drop off in the classroom before walking to their office or classroom. The children were about 6 months to 3 years old. We worked on turn taking, instrument play, singing, movement to music, and more. I wish I would have been able to do a SM training at that time to help inform my practice more of how to support caregivers in bonding with the children.

[Angie Snell]

I am fortunate to have had so many, many years of experiences with early childhood, including those 0 to 9 months. Being able to play a role in empowering parents and giving them ways to carry the bonding with their child through music outside of the music therapy sessions stand out for me. Many of these parents and early childhood staff also developed a special shared memory or bond with me that lasted well beyond their shared time in music therapy with me. I still get some of those parents who will come up to me when they see me in the community (like the grocery store) to recount their memory of their time in music therapy with me. It is awesome when they share how their child has grown up and become teenagers and young adults. I love being a music therapist and having the honor of sharing in those special moments with children and their families.

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