The Social Aspect of Music
I never thought that music lessons would be of much benefit to my daughter until I took her for some part-time music lessons. My marriage is interracial; I’m Asian while my husband is Hispanic. We live in a nice neighborhood, but I had this feeling that our daughter was not fitting in despite the fact that we had great friends in our estate.
There are times that I figured out that she may be getting harassed by other kids in the neighborhood but she never admitted to it. It always left me in pain seeing that she didn’t love spending time with other kids but preferred to stay at home. I had a discussion with her teacher who admitted that the same was the case at school. Since it was a new neighborhood that we had moved in a year ago, I really never liked what was happening to her and felt the need to do something.
My husband suggested that we talk to a psychologist who among other recommendations mentioned that we try music. We could have taken her to a school of martial arts or a lacrosse training school as suggested, but I preferred music because she loved listening to music as well as watching the church choir sing to the tunes which she hummed.
Singing can help Boosts One’s Self Esteem
The group music lessons that she was introduced in were great in breaking up the social barriers that she was experiencing. The lessons which were attended by children from different social and ethnic backgrounds helped her understand that as much as each kid was born different, there was always room to be what you can do bets. As she practiced the different instrument with others, she had room to too be constructive and rise up for the challenge like any other kid. This really worked on boosting her self esteem as she tried her best to be more of herself.
Moreover, the scheduled public appearances were also great to her self expression. At one such presentation, she was the one introducing her colleagues, and she was proud to recognize me and her dad as present for the occasion and dedicated their presentation to us. That was one of the days that I felt really proud of her.
Music Lessons Enables one to accept the Diversity of Cultures
Like I said, my marriage was interracial and it was not something that I could change, not even for our daughter. She had this task of appreciating the diversity and music helped her do so. As she leaner and practiced different musical instruments; violin, guitar, piano etc, she was at a position to understand the role of music in the different backgrounds and culture of people as well as the acceptability of music by every culture no matter the origin.
This was very instrumental in helping her appreciate the diversity and have an open-mind about the different traditions that people all over the world originate from and thus was able to accommodate each person. This was also good in lifting up her self esteem and being able to mingle and fit in.
Development of Skills through Music
As she started appreciating herself as well as others, I realized that she was changing. Just a year into the music school, she made several friends both at the school as well as in her academic life. Needless to say, she not only developed positive social skills, but her academic performance at school started to become better. She started getting along very well with her teachers as well as other students and it was appalling to see her get good results.
I must also say that her physical skills improved rapidly and she even considered going out to play with other kids as opposed to the gloomy days that she spent at home watching TV and exercising at the same time.
