Thursday, March 02, 2006

Music Behavior

I've read about the influence of music on children's behavior. I have seen it first hand when one of my sons was walking down the hallway of the house listening to something I can't imagine would be called music. With drumsticks in hand (he's a drummer) he was "drumming" the walls somewhat violently as he walked with head violently bobbing as if he was mad at the world. I put a stop to that. But nothing ever came of it and I'm quite proud how he turned out. When people talk about music influences, I assume they mean teenager, etc.

A couple of weeks ago we were entertaining my little nephews at my in-laws. They were starting to get bored with my lame entertaining and started to get a bit fussy. So I had this great idea to take out my new cell phone that I had just loaded a bunch of tunes onto. I tried my best to get the 2 year old's attention. "Look, look what I have!" I exclaimed and I proceeded to turn on the phone. The music started playing a fast song. He jumped up and ran at me with a smile, bobbing his head. The song was "Mess Around" by Ray Charles. He proceeded to dance and jump and suddenly, with one swoop motion, he wiped the coffee table clean of a full cup of coffe and a full can of coke. The music abruptly stopped and a race was on for the paper towels. The little one was taken away to a safer area.

I'd say even little 2 year olds can be influenced by music and lyrics. How fitting the song was "Mess Around".

2 comments:

delhidreams said...

hey argonaut!

liked this post a lot.

u know i've two little niece, and they are pretty influenced by the kind of music we play around.

infact, they've their own choice of movie songs, which must be played even after the song is off air.

keep posting.

thanks for the nice blog.

ron said...

when my daughter was 3 years old, she would come up with a different dance for each ringtone on my phone. i usually had to stop it each time before my battery ran out.