A pack of music and wellbeing activities for ELSAs, TAs and classroom teachers

Introduction

Everyone is a musician. You may not be a concert pianist or an award-winning singer, but everyone has the capacity to experience music and create their own music. You don’t have to be a professional musician to do music, and anyone can relate to it regardless of age, ability, culture or experiences.
We often find that a particular song can remind us of a particular memory or feeling. These feelings could be positive or negative but often contain a strong emotional response. We need to be mindful of the emotional responses that music can trigger in children and young people and think carefully about our song choices and the effect this may have on them. Music can create cathartic and meditative responses in us as well as emotional ones such as hitting a drum to release stress or listening to the calming sounds of a rain stick to help us feel relaxed. It can also help us feel energised and happy through singing loudly in the shower or dancing round the room to our favourite song. Music clearly affects our emotional responses and by tapping into this rich resource, we can help young people to use music as a tool to support their emotional wellbeing.

What benefits can music bring?

• Children and young people can identify with music and the emotions it creates in them
• They can use music to express themselves where words may fail
• Music can support emotional regulation. E.g. hitting a drum to take out frustrations
• Music develops social skills and group cohesion
• Music can boost confidence and be a subject children and young people thrive in
• Music is unique and non-judgemental

Children and young people’s behaviours are often linked to their ability or inability to regulate their emotions. When they feel regulated, they are able to manage their responses in a calm and conscious manner, but when they are dysregulated their ability to be calm and rational becomes more challenging for them to manage.

What are ‘regulation’ and ‘dysregulation’?

There are many scenarios and experiences throughout a child or young person’s day that can dysregulate their emotions. These could include, but are not limited to, a challenging home life, friendship troubles, finding lessons challenging, SEND, and feeling misunderstood or confused.

MATES Regulation Programme

Darren Abrahams is a well-respected trauma therapist and suggests that thinking about emotional regulation in terms of a house can be useful. According to this model, emotional dysregulation can occur if we spend periods of time in the extreme areas of the house. We can feel hopeless, depressed and weak in the basement, or feel heightened emotions such as irritation, anger, anxiety or avoidance in the attic. Neither of these areas are healthy places for our emotions to be on a long-term basis, so we need to support children and young people to gradually move their emotions to the living space where they can feel calm and regulated with life feeling manageable.

We can support children and young people to get their emotions into the living area by using the 5 MATES ‘keys’:

Darren Abrahams gives more information about the MATES house model in these videos:

MATES ‘keys’ can be a useful way of thinking about the effect that music has on our wellbeing. They can be used to structure sessions depending on the needs the child or young person has. Below are some examples of activities relating to these ‘keys’ that could be used to support a child or young person in your session.

• MIND – music activity bringing the child or young person to a positive headspace and as a distraction from challenges. Music can cause the brain to synchronise with the beat which causes brainwaves that are similar to those we experience when relaxed. ¹
• AIR – breathing and singing can provide a way of forcing us to breathe deeply. Singing can lower cortisol levels and relieve stress and tension. ²
• TREE – moving our feet and hands to create body percussion can help us to feel grounded as rhythm and patterns match our body’s natural rhythm so our brains easily recognise and respond to it positively. ³
• EXPRESS –self-expression and creativity are a natural part of music and can light up the limbic system which is responsible for emotions and memories. It can trigger the release of feel-good hormones. ⁴
• STRETCH – moving and dancing to music can create new pathways and connections in the brain and helps to develop social connection. ⁵

_References:

 _{^¹ Releasing Stress Through the Power of Music | Counseling Services | University of Nevada, Reno}

_{² Benefits of Singing: 10 Ways Singing Boosts Your Health}

_{³ View of How Music Can Influence the Body: Perspectives From Current Research | Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy}

_{⁴ Why — and How — Music Moves Us | Pfizer}

_{⁵ The Benefits of Music and Movement at Preschool}