Parents nurture their children from before the time of birth with classical music. While classical music is the defacto choice for kids, children don’t necessarily grow up liking them. Instead, parents may be dismayed their kids come home from school humming pop tunes. We all know the vast variety of pop music out there - not all of them contain wholesome lyrics.
But is there anything to be concerned about when your child begins listening to pop? There are actually benefits of listening to pop for your child. We explore some of the benefits in this post.
Pop is Easy Listening Compared to Classical
One key advantage to listening to pop music is that it is easy to start with! Pop music is popular for a reason. It has a simpler structure and is written for mass appeal, thus easier on the ears. Especially for children, who find themselves more easily attracted to pop music.
Pop music is everywhere. You find it in the movies, malls, and even schools. Pop music can help engage your child’s interest to learn. For instance, getting your child to learn something new such as a musical instrument through the music they love. Music has been proven to help children with academic success and improve learning abilities.
Moreover, it is very affordable to start your child learning a new musical instrument. You can purchase a kids’ ukulele in Singapore for below $20.
Learning Transferable Skills Through Music
Learning a musical instrument also helps your child learn many other skills. Studies from Yale University discovered that music helps your child to be more verbally competent. Northwestern University also found that students who played musical instruments in class had improved neural processing compared to children who only sat in music appreciation class (a non-active participation group).
Playing musical instruments helps children with hand coordination, dexterity in motor skills, and honing timing and rhythm. Professors at the Harvard Medical School and Boston College found students who received music instructions over a 15-week period had improved sound discrimination and fine motor skills.
The Real Truth
The real truth about how listening to pop benefits your child is… they will enjoy it! Of course, parents need to be vigilant about the content of pop music and ensure there isn’t any explicit content in the music.
It is good to expose your kids to multiple genres of music. Because even if you do not allow them to choose pop or certain content, they will get to it anyway when they grow up. So it is better to expose them to parental guidance than to avoid allowing them to listen to pop while they are young.
We hope you enjoyed this post and if you are thinking of exposing your child to learning pop music while they are young, check out the many musical instrument courses we teach at Ritmo Music Studio in Singapore.