How does music therapy help children?

Growing up is a journey filled with hurdles. It's a time when both young people and their families grapple with all sorts of psychological and emotional issues. And the pandemic only made things more complicated. Suddenly, schools and families had to step up — continuing to make sure everyone got proper nutrition, kept learning, and had access to healthcare while facing constant uncertainty.

But here's what's hitting hard now: the aftermath of all this. Now, it seems like everyone—school administrators, educators, students and their families — is facing a surge in behavioral issues, as well as a rise in kids navigating challenges from their past, like adverse childhood experiences or trauma.

In the midst of all this upheaval, what's really at the core of it all? It's the innate desire of young people to find a sense of safety, trust, and joy in the themselves, others, and the world around them.

Ideally, we all develop the ability to co-regulate with others that we trust. These trusting relationships lead us to develop coping skills, social awareness, resilience, and a strong foundation for high self-esteem. Unfortunately, chronic stressors and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are being documented more commonly in the United States. These experiences calibrate the body’s stress response system, the autonomic nervous system, to react to minor stressors with fight, flight, or freeze reactions. This is know as emotional dysregulation. Children with a dysregulated nervous system experience an internal state of fear and struggle to internalize feelings of safety and trust. This can lead to symptoms of depression, including:

• isolation

• inattention

• social anxiety

• lack of self-esteem

• hopelessness

In other cases, youth may be demanding attention, but at times that don’t appear appropriate to others. Instead of effective social-emotional expression, these attempts at communication may look like maladaptive behaviors or patterns, including:

• reliance on external stimulus or object dependence (e.g. addictive cycles/habits)

• passive-aggressive, oppositional, non-compliant, or even harmful behaviors

• fearfulness

• difficulty empathizing with others

We counter these experiences by attuning to the expressive needs of our clients, providing structured and unstructured opportunities, and a nonjudgmental space for creativity. Our founder and music therapist, Dan, aims to provide our young clients with a warm and trusting relationship for play-based or preferred music experiences. We advocate for an integrative approach to music therapy that informs a reflexive process for addressing chronic concerns and emerging issues. In all music therapy sessions, children and teens are empowered with meaningful choices to guide their therapy process. Individualized music therapy offers flexible resource for connection, emotional processing, play, and co-regulation.