You can avoid the stereotypical musical clash between generations. This is important because music is an important mode of expression and an integral part of social interaction. Here are basic strategies:

You don’t have to be musical to enjoy music with your children. In fact, you should help your children to understand that engaging with music is not something restricted to the highly talented or famous. Young children automatically like and interact with music. This can be a wonderfully fun and useful part of your parent-child relationship.

There are many ways to integrate music into family life.

Just participating in musical activities increases musical abilities and understanding. This leads to both increased enjoyment with personal participation and increased appreciation for other people’s music. By encouraging children to engage with music, you encourage them to be creative.

Music is repetitive by nature. The structure of music is one of patterns and repetition. This helps with memorization and enjoyment. The more familiar we are with a song, the more we can “get into it.” This can provide both opportunity and challenge.

One important thing to remember is that we can often teach our brains to NOT pay attention to continuous noises around us. By practicing patience, mixed with understanding the benefits of repetition to the child, it can help us gain a perspective that makes it easier to subdue irritation.

Sometimes it is just a matter of volume. Asking children to turn down the volume or play their instruments a bit softer is a reasonable social thing for them to be aware of. For young