This weekend at the From Despair to Hope conference I was reminded of something I had completely forgotten about. When M was a baby and toddler she raged almost daily for upwards of 3 hours. That I did not forget.
This is the part I forgot...
Once, out of desperation to keep my cool, I began singing. And she stopped screaming and fighting. Once I stopped she began again, but if I would keep singing long enough for her to come all the way back to me, it was often enough to make the raging stop completely. After a while, I was sometimes able to identify the signs that she was about to rage and many times we could keep her from raging by singing to her. Ana Gomez, who lead the conference said that singing is one of the best things we can do with our kids. It causes the same hormones in the brain that laughter does and it engages the middle of the brain rather than the lower part of the brain where rages occur.
For the same reasons, it's also a wonderful way to bond and has some of the same benefits that touching does. And, as if that wasn't enough, music is also linked to memory so a song you sing together may trigger memories of happiness, comfort, warmth and love later in life. Which I think is especially cool for foster parents who may not always get to give those things in a physical since.
I should point out that if I started singing to you it would probably send you into a rage, but that's the beauty of children, they do not care about things like "pitch" and "knowing all the words", so start singing.
One more note: to help solidify the memory aspect, choose some songs that are a bit more obscure. Maybe some that you remember from your own childhood.
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