The Power of Music to Reach Children
Trying to get my children out in the mornings was just horrific.
One of my children was hyperactive and found it very difficult to follow simple instructions. He was all over the place, jumping off things, throwing things and was unable to be still or calm in any way shape or form. He was also really dissociated , which meant that he was really detached and found it very difficult just to tune in to what was happening, which meant that following any kind of instructions, or getting him to do anything, was pretty much impossible and I just felt like I was smashing my head up against a brick wall.
And then one day, purely by chance, a song came on the radio while we were trying to get out in the morning and I'd been saying something over and over and he wasn't listening, but as I was talking to him, he just started singing this song...and that was the moment that I realised that I'd found a way in, a way to reach him.
So when I first started writing songs, it was initially just to help us with those difficult and tricky moments of getting out in the morning. But what I found was that it went in SO quickly and they worked so well...but not just that, it changed the whole energy of our morning. So instead of being all AARGH, it started being fun and we started looking forward to it and we ended up singing and dancing all the way to school instead. But then the teachers started reporting back to me that his day had been so much better. Because when we start the day well, it tends to continue to go well and when we start the day with stress, it has this knock on effect as we take that negative energy with us and then we transfer it to another right? So that was when I really understood the power of music and I started formulating the idea for being able to use music for much bigger things.
