Singing about feelings
Jenny Mosley ('Response time', Nursery World, 23.02.06) wrote of the importance of acknowledging strong expressions of emotion, listening to what children are saying about their feelings and reflecting back. Songs, like stories, can help children explore the emotional skills they need to be fulfilled and expressive communicating individuals.
We can help children's social and emotional development by using songs and music play where they find the words and sounds to make sense of their thoughts and fears, or feelings like timidity or excitement.
The nature of music itself can be helpful. I will give the example of Kieran, aged two and a half, in a family centre. He takes two saucepans and the lids, sets up his 'drumkit', finds a beater and plays energetically and continuously for over ten minutes, to the surprise of his key worker. She explains that he has just started attending the nursery for longer periods, staying after lunch, and she thinks he might be 'working something out' in this way.
The musicologist Ian Cross writes about how music can have many meanings according to how it is used. So Kieran may be using sound play as a kind of emotional escape valve.
Older children can be encouraged to express how they feel through role- playing characters in songs and stories, through moving and playing instruments in different ways and then finding the words to describe these feelings. Songs can be very helpful, especially when they are about people and places children know, their homes, their families and their pets. Songs that give room for the children's creative ideas, where they can work out how they want to act and sound, are important to help children's expressiveness.
'Voiceplay' (ISBN 0-19-321060-6) has songs and activities that give opportunities for children to sing their own stories and feelings on their own and with others.
