I'm not the music police!

I've done plenty a post about the benefits of music and nursery rhymes and signing and dancing with your kids! This post is about raising awareness of the impacts of music and other background noises on language development.

We've ALL DONE IT (totally tell me if you're some magician who can do this) - we turn down the radio when we go through the drive through. Because how on earth could we focus on reading the menu and deciding what we want when there's background music. The same with reading a map or checking directions - we just need silence, right? The noise impacts our ability to focus.

The same happens for our kiddies. When you're learning new stuff and taking on new information, you just need some quiet time. Furthermore, when things are quiet, adults are much more likely to chat, fill the quiet space and have more turns in a turn taking conversation. All great language models for our kids.

So just something to think on. Nobody can live in total silence. Nobody's stopping my toddler roaring like a dinosaur over everything. But have a think about when you could turn off some of the background noise and have some focussed playing and talking together.

Share with a parent or educator :)