For most parents, the moment you find out that you’re having a baby, you immediately start thinking of all the extracurricular activities your child is going to do. You picture your little one playing basketball or winning beauty pageants. If you’re a parent who’s musically inclined, you definitely want your child to pick up an instrument and learn music.

Whether you want your child to play a sport or play an instrument, you have to wonder what’s a good age to get them started in those activities. For sports, you clearly can start really getting your child physically involved until they’ve learned to walk, talk, and have somewhat of an understanding of the sport but with music… you can start incorporating music in your child’s life while they’re still in the womb.

You’ve seen expectant mothers with a speaker held to their belly playing music to their baby in hopes that once they’re born and get older, they’ll find an interest in music. Various studies have shown that if you notice your baby clapping, dancing, or banging on the table to the beat of the music, then there’s a strong possibility that your child might be interested in music. For the musically inclined parents, if you get them started learning music at a young age, the age when they mimic everything you do, you’ll be able to instill a learned behavior of learning music.

Now, the thing about getting your child interested in music at such a young age is to keep it fun and not make it a chore for them. Because they’re so young, if you take the fun out of learning music, you’ll diminish any hopes you had of them becoming musically inclined. Even if you’re not a musically inclined parent but still want your child to learn music, you have the option of exposing your child to music lessons. According to parents.com, music lessons are beneficial to your child in numerous ways.

Benefits of Music Lessons

Music has been called a universal language for many reasons and for children, it could be the key to a bright and successful future. For children, music has been known to:

• Enhance social skills
• Boost self-esteem
• Expose them to different cultures
• Improve their academics
• Teach them patience

Although music brings on these wonderful benefits, you have to make sure your child is interested… talk to them about it to see where their interest levels are. By not communicating with your child, you could be wasting money on music lessons that they’re not even interested in… This is actually a pretty common thing among parents. Parents will oftentimes push their own personal interests on their kids when their kids never got the chance to speak on what they wanted to do. That’s why it’s so important to talk to your children about their musical interests.

When trying to find out their musical interests, first see what instruments they find interesting. Just because you want them to play the piano, that doesn’t mean that they want to play it… Maybe they want to play the guitar. You want to find out their instrument of choice first because musical instruments are not cheap! But once you find out what instrument they’re interested in, you can then search for music teachers that give lessons for the instrument your child is interested in.

So What Age Should You Start Music Lessons For Your Child?

The honest answer is that as far as children are concerned, the sooner the better. But your child can begin music lessons at any age. Again, you just have to be mindful of their interest. When they’re really young, you’re helping mold their interest in music. As they get older, their interest in music may decrease because they weren’t exposed to it at an early age, and that’s okay. The decision to learn music is up to your child and as the parent, it’s up to you to provide them with the resources they need to spark or maintain their interest.

Learning music is a skill that doesn’t come so easy to some people and if your child does express an interest in it, it’s your duty to try and keep them interested as long as possible. There are so many people who say “I wish I would have stuck with my music lessons” versus “I’m so glad I didn’t have to stick with those music lessons.” Learning music is something that does require discipline and if you notice that your child has an interest in it, you’re going to have to teach them the importance of ticking with it.