If I could give one, just one, piece of parenting advice, it is this:
Give your children music lessons.
Granted, in some ways this advice is very selfish, because I am writing this about the pleasure I get from it.
Piano lessons are the gateway. Both of our children received piano lessons at an early age, teaching them the very basics of music: how to read and listen to music. From that foundation of piano lessons, our children branched out into violin, clarinet, and a host of stringed instruments (various guitars, mandolin, and ukulele). We even have a drumset in our house now.
Now, the sound of music fills our house – and not from the radio, or TV, or Pandora, but from our children sitting in their room. Sometimes they are practicing for band at school, playing scales and exercises and rehearing songs. Sometimes they are just sitting at their computer, watching a show or working on homework, and the lovely sounds of a classical guitar or ukulele or clarinet solo form the background music of our day.
While I don’t expect either of my children to make a career in music, selfishly I am glad that, for a period of our life, the sounds of their instruments fill our home.
