As young as three years old, children can learn how to play musical instruments. Generally, children ages six years and above can start learning the ukulele because it is easy, thus increasing their self-confidence and motivation. Aside from that, children can learn these skills as they grow and become adults. Teaching your child how to play the ukulele can bring a lot of benefits, including the essential skills needed as they progress through their developmental stage.
In this post, you’ll learn the essential skills children can learn when playing the ukulele.
Coping Skills
Ukulele lessons offered by music schools like Musician Authority can help ease a child’s stress and boredom. Children tend to get bored quickly because of predictable routines. Avoid agitation and restlessness by giving your child a new activity to spark their interest. Learning how to play the ukulele is a great new hobby that can also help your child develop healthy coping skills when facing problems or challenges in life.
Here’s how:
- Playing the ukulele requires concentration to create pleasant musical sounds, so your stressed or restless child can focus their mind on the musical instrument than an unknown fear or thinking of a stressful situation.
- Your child spends less time playing gadgets and spends their activity time learning a healthy and a new hobby that can help them divert their attention if they are faced with discomfort or unpleasant feelings. It is an excellent way to teach your child to resort to more productive coping mechanisms than negative ones.
Language Skills
When it comes to musical instruments, starting with the ukulele takes less discipline than other musical instruments. Most ukulele songs are easy to learn, which also improves your child’s language skills by increasing your child’s vocabulary. Explore your child’s interest in linguistics by learning different languages singing and playing foreign ukulele songs. The rewards are priceless when you hear your son or daughter singing and playing a Spanish, French, or Japanese ukulele song.
Skills in Singing and Playing Stringed Instruments
Ukuleles have four strings, and the learning curve is much easier than guitars. Your child can start playing and singing easy ukulele songs in just a few days. Once your child knows how to hold and strum the strings of a ukulele, it will be easier to learn how to play a guitar.
Children can sing and play the ukulele with these famous ukulele songs:
- Hot Cross Buns
- Baa Baa Black Sheep
- Frere Jacques
- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
- Old MacDonald Had a Farm
- Humpty Dumpty
- Mary Had a Little Lamb
Discipline
Because the ukulele requires discipline and consistency to improve skills, allowing your child to learn playing this instrument is a good idea. It can be their stepping stone to learn more challenging musical instruments in the future, like the guitar, violin, and piano.
Teach your kids about discipline by supporting their musical inclination. Playing an instrument, writing songs, singing, and dancing, can make them a better person. Like sports, music also requires hard work, perseverance, patience, and camaraderie, as evidenced by an orchestra or band presentations.
Social Skills
Kids can be addicted to digital technology, and you probably notice your young children so inclined to playing video games and watching videos online. Aside from making them unhealthy because of reduced or minimal physical activities, children who prefer to use smartphones or tablets have reduced social interaction, thus leading to poor social skills.
Learning a musical instrument has many social benefits. It fosters cooperation, social orientation, and social cohesion. According to a Canadian study, about half of the 84 participants who took a 40-minute music class weekly in an entire school year had increased pro-social behavior and empathy as compared to those who did not participate in the program.
Here are the details of the study:
- The ten-month music program was developed in the 1970s. It features a mixed group of sight reading, improvisation, ear training, and singing and playing.
- The children performed arrangements for folk songs, pop songs, jazz, and classical music. Children were encouraged to show their musical skills to their neighbors and other students.
- At the end of the school year, the participants took a vocabulary test and are evaluated for the ability to read facial expressions, as well as assessed for social skills by asking them relevant questions about sharing things with others and feeling sorry for other people who are hurt or upset.
As a parent, you want your child to become a healthy, happy, talented, and disciplined adult someday. That’s why every parent wants their children to learn nurturing activities, like playing musical instruments. The ukulele is a simple instrument that your child will surely appreciate. Playing the ukulele will help develop a child’s social skills, coping skills, language skills, thus enabling them to become more disciplined.
