The Sound of Two Hands Clapping

It is natural to want our children to participate in the things that give us pleasure! But "helping" children to perform actions for which they are not developmentally ready may not be the best way to teach them these things. In Waving Bye-Bye, my most recent blog entry, we explored what happens when a child’s arm is waved for him. http://www.ecmma.org/blog/movement_matters/waving_bye_bye   After “Bye Bye," the next most common reason for an adult to manipulate a child’s limbs is probably clapping.

When working with children, a good rule of thumb is to ask, “What is the natural way for this coordination to develop?” Then we look for ways to support this developmental process.

Clapping is a complicated activity, and the brain/body system has to work hard to coordinate it. Getting those arms moving in concert, and connecting one hand with another is a virtuoso performance for any young child. 

One reason for clapping is to applaud a performance – either someone else’s, or the child’s own “Good job.”  I’ve been in early childhood music classes where the children clap after each song.

But applause does not really flow out of a child’s own experience.  Young children live in the NOW; they do not – and should not – possess the kind of self-reflective consciousness that makes applause make sense.  Applause stops the rhythm of life; it creates a gulf between the activity and the perception of the activity, between the performance and the performer.  For young children, the best reward is just to keep doing the fun thing, and then the next, and the next. 

But an excellent reason for clapping is to keep a beat. Clapping along with the beat can develop organically from a child’s experience of music. The best way to encourage this kind of rhythmic clapping is to model it. Have your child in your lap as you clap in rhythm to a song.  The experience of your body moving to the music, along with the auditory accent of your actual clap, will go right into your child’s ears and body.  And when they are ready, they will begin to bang out the rhythm themselves.

To enhance this experience, you can also gently tap the rhythm on your child’s body.  This helps your child internalize the rhythm.  If you are patient, when children are ready to express the beat, they will – and probably in perfect time.