[Kim Schlesinger]

I agree with Hally that I tend to use these four musical experiences to outline my sessions, but in reflecting I realize that the order and intent behind them varies greatly depending on the population. When working with older adults I often tend to start with singing and then moving soon into music to try to get the energy up and capture their attention before passing out instruments and moving into the playing portion of the session. In that situation I often close with more listening experiences as a cool down. With children, however, I find that I typically switch the order of moving and playing, or flip flop back and forth between the two during the middle portion of my session. Since getting up and moving around with young children can be very energizing and stimulating, I typically aim for that as a peak experience toward the middle, allowing plenty of time for them to cool back down with other experiences before closing the session.

[Kim Schlesinger]

Erin – I think it is always interesting to consider the way that your own music background and the background of your clients intersect and differ. It is also interesting to try to find a balance of bringing in religious songs and being sure to only use them upon client request because you might not know the religious background of any given client.

[Kim Schlesinger]

Thanks for the clarification Erika!
To add to my response, the music culture that I am currently working in is similar to the one that I grew up in and the one that Haily described. Parents and their kiddos know and recognize many nursery rhymes and traditional children’s songs. However, in addition to this, I feel that the sprouting melodies courses here have created a bit of their own mini culture by using songs week after week that promote retention in the children and that also become familiar to the parents and caregivers. I had the experience of running my own Sprouting Melodies class for the first time last week (all by myself because of last minute circumstances) and I used some of the most familiar songs. In this experience it was great to have the support of many caregivers singing along with songs that they had come to know and love.

[Kim Schlesinger]

Sammie – I agree that as a non-parent it can be so intimidating to engage in parent education, but from what I’ve learned that can be a big part of at least what our sprouting melodies classes entail. Meredith always says (and I’ve heard it repeated by various SM leaders) that if you’re not singing in class you won’t do it at home. Trying to teach parents to engage, teach them that all reactions their babies have to the music are okay, and teach them about the developments that you see in their kiddos can be tricky to navigate but very important.

Additionally, yes, I have already seen multiple instances of kiddos becoming overstimulated and subsequently I’ve observed therapists switching up what they are doing to meet the needs. Sometimes the therapist will continue and allow a child to learn to tolerate a shared space, especially when whatever is going on may be benefitting the others in the class, but there are other times when an ocean drum has just become too much and it’s time to try something new.

[Kim Schlesinger]

Angela – I like what you brought up about children not being ready to understand certain concepts like sharing. I think it is so interesting to attempt to tap into the thoughts of the kiddos that we work with and to reflect on the progress that has been made in understanding developmental stages. I remember discussing in school about how there was a time that people didn’t have a true understanding that a child’s mind is different from an adults. It seems that it is probably natural for us to assume that children should be able to understand the concepts that we understand, but really taking a moment to consider their developmental level is important in not only helping to teach these concepts, but also in keeping our own frustration check as professionals, caregivers, and parents.

[Kim Schlesinger]

Erika – Thanks for sharing those personal experiences. Since I am not a parent I don’t have a good insight into all of the complexities of raising children and introducing different concepts. There are clearly so many influences, whether it be preschool, other family members, peers, etc, that will affect the way a child understands certain constructs. Who can ever really know the right way to address these things?

[Kim Schlesinger]

Suzanne – Wartburg is a small liberal arts college in Waverly, Iowa. It boasts a great music program and is potentially going to be the first in the state to offer a Master’s Program in Music Therapy (although there has been a lot of controversy in getting that up off the ground).

I agree that this format is much better for an online class than others I have experienced, even and especially from colleges and universities (they could maybe learn a thing or two).

[Kim Schlesinger]

One of the young children that I have interacted with in Sprouting Melodies has been gradually making the transition from Trust to Independence. When I first started my internship and observed this child interacting with the senior intern who was leading the session, he was prone to standing/leaning on the intern and her guitar and screaming loudly along with the music. When there was discussion in the video about exploring vocal timbre and screaming as a natural part of that, I chuckled to myself remembering this client and his clear desire to explore his own vocal timbre. After a few weeks of observing him react in this way, he began to take on a different role in the sessions and he would observe more quietly from different locations in the room, frequently changing his location in the circle. In this way he began to move into independence, making the musical choice of where to position himself in the music environment.

[Kim Schlesinger]

Since I have been observing the Sprouting Melodies classes here at Roman MT, I was already familiar with a significant portion of the music that was presented. While I am eager to learn and incorporate some of the new ones, it was also really interesting to hear the songs that I already know played in a different way. Piano is my major instrument, but I am often not able to use it in sessions. I really loved the piano accompaniments that Elizabeth played with the familiar melodies, and I have started to try and play some of them on the piano as well. It is remarkable how much a different accompaniment pattern or accompaniment instrument can really change the whole presentation of a song.

[Kim Schlesinger]

I grew up within a small Christian community and my dad has even been a pastor for my whole life, getting ordained when I was only one. Because of this, many spiritual and religious songs play a large role in the music culture of my home. Despite my own journey determining if my personal belief set fits within that religious identity, I have always and continue to find comfort in the hymns and liturgy that have always been a big part of my musical background. The community-wide sharing of this Christian cultural music is most apparent around holidays, particularly around Christmas time when so much of my home community knows and shares Christmas songs.

[Kim Schlesinger]

Something that really stood out to me in the videos and readings from this week were the instances of children developing their own sense of their personal sex and gender. The diversity of sex and gender is something that has been of personal interest to me for quite some time due to many important relationships and connections that I have with friends, family members, and romantic partners who are of various trans and non-cis identities. I find myself being hyper aware and hypercritical of discussions surrounding this topic because of the pain that I have seen in my loved ones caused by various societal gender norms and because of a need that I see to bring awareness to gender identities outside of the norm.

I was really interested to read and hear the developmental markers such as the statement that between 24-36 months a child becomes aware of their sex and between 48-60 months a child becomes aware of their gender and starts to identify with a same sex parent. I found myself pondering what this awareness could possibly look like for such a young child when many people struggle to come to terms with their gender identity over the entire course of their lifetime. While I would have to look into the research available between nature vs. nurture in terms of gender development in order to cite specifics, I found myself questioning whether kids at these ages actually grasp the concept of their personal gender or if they’re simply socialized into these roles. It was made quite clear in the training that children have a strong tendency to imitate and, ironically, directly above the listing that 4-5 year olds are aware of their gender, the book also states that these children are “aware of rules.” This makes me wonder how much of this awareness and connection to same-sex parents is encouraged by socialization and societal “rules” so to speak for little girls and little boys, and how much comes from an innate early desire to align oneself within a socially constructed gender binary. Gender socialization becomes so ingrained in all of us, beginning even before a child has been born. One of the first questions asked of a pregnant person is “is it a girl or a boy,” and I’m sure we’ve all either seen or been part of gender reveal parties decked out in pink or blue. While the vast majority of the population identifies as cis-gender (meaning their personal sense of gender matches with the gender assigned at birth based on physical anatomy), I can’t help but wonder what could be possible if all children were given the opportunity to find themselves authentically without pressures to perhaps prefer certain colors or toys.

Apologies for my long winded explanation, but to tie it all together I believe my critical lense in regards to gender development is something that I personally bring to the discussion and practice of early childhood music therapy based programming. While no one, least of all me, is a complete expert on all of the intricacies of the gender spectrum, I eagerly engage in conversation about gender diversity and I hope to learn more through my own research and personal experiences.

[Kim Schlesinger]

My biggest take away from this week’s unit will be the ability to apply my knowledge of developmental stages to the kids that I see at the daycare center and in the sprouting melodies classes that I observe. While I learned about these stages in classes at school, I was not in an environment where I could observe children embodying the various developments that we discussed in class. For that reason, I’m not sure how much of the information truly stuck with me as working knowledge. It’s really interesting to be able to think of a specific kiddo who demonstrated social, physical, language, or some other sort of development now that I am seeing the developmental stages side by side with real growing and learning children.

[Kim Schlesinger]

Likewise Christina!

Suzanne – Wartburg is in Waverly, Iowa. It’s fun how small and connected the wider world of music therapy is.

[Kim Schlesinger]

Test post!

[Kim Schlesinger]

Hello everyone!
My name is Kim Schlesinger. I graduated this May from Wartburg College, and I am currently about two and a half months into my internship at Roman Music Therapy Services (yes, THE Roman Music Therapy Services that Meredith founded). I am a Midwest native who wanted an opportunity to see a different part of the country, and I’ve been very fortunate and have already experienced tremendous growth both personally and professionally since moving to the Boston area and beginning my work here at RMTS. My professional experience is somewhat limited since I am still in internship, but through this position I have had the opportunity to work in nursing homes, group homes, schools, individual client homes, daycares, and with various groups offered right at our office including the Sprouting Melodies courses.

In taking this course, I am in a unique situation which allows me to take part in a fully functioning Sprouting Melodies series once a week alongside the coursework that will educate me about what I am observing. My internship supervisor, the wonderfully talented Laetitia Brundage, is a Sprouting Melodies provider here who I have already been able to observe for the past couple of months and who I will begin to co-lead with as I move through the training. Therefore, I am particularly motivated to take this course in order to make further sense of the practices that I have already been witnessing and to build my own abilities to slowly take over a course during my time in internship.

Also, incase anyone missed it there are in fact THREE Wartburg College alumni in this course and I am thrilled to be participating in this training with one of my very best friends and past classmates, Sammie Hallgren, despite hundreds of miles of distance. I love the sense of community a course like this can bring, even as we discuss how to bring that same sense of community to our future Sprouting Melodies kiddos and families.

[Author]

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