Parenting Solutions

Parenting teenagers, teen music, teen learn music, teen education, parent, teacher

Will listening to music make you smarter? Will learning to play a musical instrument make your brain grow larger than normal? Questions like these ones have been popping up all over the place in the past few years, and not just in scientific journals either.

For example music courses are a great way to learn about virtually any area of music; history, theory, and musical instrument instruction — you name it and somewhere music courses specialize in it. And everyone knows that the teenage years can be challenging. The many physical and emotional changes can be difficult to deal with. It is very important for teenagers to have an outlet; a way to express themselves.

Sports and music are good examples of outlets. However, it can be difficult to break into a sport as a teenager. The recreational sports programs have become very competitive. Children are playing the same sports for three seasons a year as opposed to children playing three different sports a year. Some levels in the recreational programs have been raised to the levels of select or traveling leagues. If you are an average player, joining a team as a preteen or teen may be intimidating.

Music, on the other hand, offers many opportunities even for the preteen or teen that didn’t have an interest as a child. There are schools and music teachers who offer lessons for children and adults of any age. There are ’self-teaching’ keyboards and guitars which give basic instruction at an individual pace. Practicing an instrument can be done in the privacy of the home and builds confidence.

The Benefits of Music Education

The trick for parents is to enroll their teenagers in high quality programs and assist them in purchasing high quality instruments. There are indeed many benefits to be realized from a musical education is listed below.

Playing a Musical Instrument Can:

* Help your teens develop a commitment to excellence
* Help your teens develop self-esteem
* Provide an opportunity for your teens to experience self-expression, creativity, and heightened achievement
* Engage the imagination
* Contribute to a balanced, positive, challenging, and stimulating education
* Prepare your teens for other stages of development and participation in society by fostering dedication and sensitivity
* Increase your teen’s brain development, math abilities, and higher thinking skills
* Help your teens develop perseverance when things are looking bleak and hopeless
* Raise your teen’s awareness
* Expand your teen’s knowledge
* Help your teen develop mind and body coordination
* Contribute to your teen’s spiritual growth
* Help your teens develop teamwork skills
* Be a source of great fun!

Learning an instrument has many academic and social benefits. Music is linked to higher test scores, improved coordination, concentration levels, and study discipline. Other benefits include improved language, social, and memory skills.

During middle school and high school, the world of preteens and teens begin to grow. Bigger schools mean more acquaintances and opportunities. Preteens and teens start to separate from their childhood buddies and begin to make new friends with others who share the same interests. Music opens many doors including marching band, rock bands, jazz bands, plays, concerts, and competitions.

Due to life circumstances, the death of a spouse, I had been out of the dating game for some time and reentered the scene after a 27-year absence. I experienced what I like to call ‘culture shock’. One definition is as follows: A state of bewilderment and distress experienced when suddenly exposed to a new, strange, or foreign social and cultural environment.

That was me, a 48 year old widow with three children, experiencing true culture shock when I began dating. I thought it would be a relatively uncomplicated process to jump back in. (Yes, I laugh when I read this) You go out with someone who shares mutual interests, you go to dinner, the movies, sometimes you stay in and watch movies or Stop. That wasn’t what happened.

The above is what I considered the normal dating process, but I found there was nothing approaching normal in today’s dating scene. Having been married 20 years, I naively believed in happily-ever-after when the two right people found each other. I knew what relationships were about and I also knew they could be hard work at times.

My experience with online dating is as follows: Online dating felt similar to a smorgasbord. If you don’t like one dish you try, throw it in the trash and proceed to the next as quickly as possible. There’s always something different and new on the table.

There’s nothing wrong with variety and trying new dishes, but at least admit if you don’t like the current dish. Don’t play with your food. Dating at 48. In my admittedly limited experience, I discovered a variety of issues that came into play.

My age group, as perhaps is true with other age groups, many of us have been wounded in minor and major ways by life and by society in general. Some of us carry the baggage from the wounding on our backs, others leave the baggage at the train station.

Based on my experience, some individuals have never learned basic relationship skills. Early on, I attracted only emotionally unavailable men. Men who were still in love or emotionally attached to other women. Men who preferred to remain single and just do surface dating. Whether intentionally or not, they played at dating with no real intent to take it further into any kind of emotional commitment; for whatever reason. Most of these men were good men in their own right and perhaps best kept as friends.

One dating experience I had was a man whose company I really enjoyed. He was a good father, an excellent businessman, but when we were together, he never showed interest in my day, activities or what was happening in my life.

I hoped he would change. We had been ‘dating’ about three weeks when I finally asked myself why was I hanging around with someone who made me feel so unfulfilled and contributed nothing to my life? I realized that even though he was a good man, he was not good for me. It was still incredibly difficult to make the break but I knew I deserved more.

My dating helped me learn additional life skills I myself lacked. I learned that dating should begin as friends, and I shouldn’t drop everything because a guy calls. My most important skill learned is letting someone show me they’re truly interested in me before jumping into intimacy.

These simple pieces of experience are often learned by kids today in their teens and twenties. Somehow, I had missed these lessons some thirty years ago. When I realized by being true to myself is my real power, I also decided that for now, I choose to be alone. I choose to be alone until the right person comes along who will enhance my life as much as I enhance his.

Elaine Williams is a writer across various genres. She has been published in women’s fiction, but also enjoys writing children’s books, self-help, non-fiction and screenplays. Elaine is a business owner, actively volunteers in her community and also serves on local committees.
http://www.ajourneywelltaken.com