parenting

From the time that my kids were babies I noticed the impact that music had on them.  I’m not talking about stuff like early development, or IQ, or something that science would value – I’m talking about what I valued as a mom.  Which basically means I tuned into the music that calmed the screamers and soothed the impatiently tired.

My kids are still fairly young-ish and I still use the power of music whenever possible.  I would like to say that I do this for them, but really IT’S FOR ME.

For instance, when we’ve all been strapped in the car too long and my kids start exercising their powerful vocal range and eardrum shattering pitch, I just turn up some soothing music and usually it makes the ride go a bit smoother.  And then I don’t even have to duct tape any of them to the roof of the car, which scores me a lot of good parenting points.

I also rely on good music every night when the kids go to bed.  We’ve always kept CD players in their rooms, just so we could play music at bed time.  It is invaluable at our house.  We like to change it up sometimes and have played Primary songs, classical music, well known lullabies, and various instrumental music CDs.

It’s amazing how quickly a rowdy herd of kids can settle down when they’re listening to the right music.  And it doesn’t just work on kids either.  Whenever I feel like I’m about to implode or throw something out a window, I usually head to my favorite music streaming stations (yourLDSradio is on my list of fave stations of course) and mellow out to music until smoke stops billowing out of my ears or my stress levels start edging out of the redzone.  It’s kind of amazing.

If you’d like a few suggestions on what we like to listen to when the screaming/crazy/tired/monster kids (or mom) show up, try William Joseph‘s “Be Still Collection” or Micheal Dowdle‘s “A Brighter Day” or just cut straight to the tried and true Primary Children’s Songbook favorites.  And hopefully you can enjoy the benefits of a good musical influence too.