Fun Friday: Fun in the Music Therapy Room

I am trying something rather new in my music therapy room this school year - leisure-focused sessions rather than just music therapy. Here is the deal - my students do not know how to occupy themselves in their leisure time other than with screens. They can watch television, movies, play video games, but they do not know how to use blocks or Matchbox cars or dolls or puzzles or crossword books or balls. Take away the screens, and my students cannot figure out things to do.

This is not something that I have ever experienced. My life has been full of opportunities to get bored, to be away from screens, and to be turned outside to keep myself and my siblings occupied along with all the other kids in the neighborhood. We were supposed to be as safe as possible, but other than that, we had no real guidelines about what we should (goblin) be doing with ourselves. If I had been given a choice in the matter, I would have remained inside, reading, but I did not get that choice. Mom turned us out, and that was a good thing.

We used to play Oregon Trail (our backyard was a mostly desert landscape) and Little House on the Prairie. We would ride our bikes up and down the cul-de-sac. We would dig and chase lizards and cheer on our Martha cat as she chased lost dogs down the street. We would talk to each other, fight with each other, and generally figure things out on our own. Was it always good for us? Nope. Did we learn about ourselves and how to relate to other people? You bet. If we got into conflicts we either worked it out or went home until the next day.

When we were stuck inside, we had all sorts of things to do. My mother did not allow us to watch television during the day, so we would empty the toy cabinet and set up elaborate Barbie universes and stories while listening to records on the record player in my brother's room. Our only rules were to treat each other within typical boundaries and to clean up everything when Mom told us to do so. We were also encouraged to make things out of the supplies we had available to us - lots of paper grocery bag maps and drawings and creations were made.

When my students have non-screen, non-school time, they do not often initiate play or interaction or exploration of their environments and materials. It is one of the most prevalent criticisms that the adult program folks have about our students - they don't know how to fill their leisure time. Part of this happens before they arrive at our facility - they just don't seem to explore the ways other children do as toddlers and young children. Lots of this happens as they grow older and it is just easier to put a video on the screen to keep them occupied than it is to work with the "I'm bored" whinges and situations.

So, I am going to be taking the fourth week of every month to introduce my students to some leisure options that they may not know about. This month, we started the session by learning how to do centers and then how to do the specific centers that I planned. For each center, the students have a "must do" task - this is the "work" that they have to do during the session. Once that is completed at the center, then there are "may do" tasks. Students are encouraged to try those tasks, but they can also take my idea and change it to what they want to do. This month, we used the Matchbox cars and the tracks, had some musical symbol coloring sheets, played mystery melodies on pitched percussion, created our own melodies, used spinners to dictate how we can move, and used a different spinner to rewrite Old McDonald Had a Farm. As I try to expand their repertoire of play options, I will be also including bits and pieces of what we are learning in our other weekly themes - that is where the mystery melodies came in this month.

Out of my eleven groups, all but one were able to complete tasks. Some of my groups will not be doing centers but will engage in the play tasks in a full-group environment. The one group that was not able to complete tasks was able to complete tasks with me, but not with their behavioral health technicians. 

In fact, most of the issues that happen occur with the BHTs. Many of them do not seem to know how to play either, so there are some staff who are better aligned with centers than others. It is always interesting to me who can lead learning and who cannot. A big part of my job in this week is teaching the BHTs how to help our students learn how to play through modeling - the BHTs are often unable to do what I am asking - either that, or unwilling. We are going to work on their play skills as well.

It was interesting to watch how my students interacted with each other - or didn't. One group erupted into mass altercations when asked to share the spinners. (That group will be doing things large group next time - not small group.) It was also interesting to watch how the BHTs interacted with students - or didn't. I was able to see who would initiate play with others, who played by themselves, and who just sat and stared without direction.

The other thing we did this week was listen to musical examples from musicians born in the month of September. It was fun to see what my students recognized - most of the old songs were identified as from movies which always amazes me. My students can recall information from movies more readily than any other source. I guess all that screen time was beneficial for some skills. I still want them to play, though.

Since it is Friday, I will have some time to set up my Culture of the Month session strategy for next week. Our country is Germany, so I will be figuring out how to let people know that without having access to a bulletin board (long story, short - marketing took my board away from me). I also want to decrease the screen time for this weekly theme and increase the active engagement. We will see what I come up with.

I hope that you get some time to have fun in your music therapy environment. Happy Friday!