8 Benefits of Drumming for Toddlers

Science has long established that teaching children how to play an instrument helps in their faster development of different social and motor skills. It’s also a fun and practical way for children to learn many foundational concepts.

In this article, we’re going to explore the benefits of drumming in particular for toddlers.

People that don’t play an instrument generally tend to ignore the drums as the instrument for children, as they see it as dull and non-musical. If you live in a confined space, you may not want your child to bang on the drums the whole day around. But if you have enough space to provide sound isolation to some extent, there really shouldn’t be any reason for not letting your child get into drumming.

With different kids’ versions of different drums and toys resembling drums, you can have a great variety on which instrument your child wants to play.

Generally, drumming is considered an adult thing, and children are pushed to learn other melodic instruments (like piano, violin, guitar…). In this article, we’re going to look at the benefits your toddler can have from drumming at such a young age.

If you are looking to give your toddler a head start in learning drums, check out our guide on the best drum sets for toddlers.

If you are looking for sets for older kids, check out our post on electronic drums for kids and kid’s drum sets.

1. Development of Motor Skills

This one is just so plainly obvious. Drumming requires you to coordinate all four of your limbs at the same time in different tempos. If you think this is easy to try simple tapping exercises to see that it really isn’t. And teaching a toddler even the simple basic rhythm patterns is going to tremendously improve their motor skills and teach them to control their body much faster than their peers.

2. Keeping Fit

Connected to the physical part of drumming is also keeping your toddler fit. In today’s day and age, people tend to be moving less and less due to their lifestyle and they also transfer this behavior to their children. Since keeping fit is integral for your child’s health, drumming as a highly physical activity is certainly going to help those muscles grow and develop.

3. Social Connection

Even though you haven’t seen an all-drummers band play, children are going to learn and develop their social skills, especially if they’re going to class with other children to learn. Also, there are different varieties of social activities involving children drummers, like child drum circles.

4. Academic Development

In a previous article, we noted that learning a musical instrument can greatly increase your academic performance. For small children, there is a definite plus in drumming when they are learning basic things about numbers and counting.

Since drumming is based around counting and keeping time, your child is much more likely to start grasping these concepts from an earlier age if they start practicing early. As a visual and hearing aid to numbers, drums can really be a good teaching tool.

5. Stress Reduction

When you’re so young and everything is new to you, you can get stressed about the situation that adults don’t really understand or take for granted. If you’re a parent, you know how difficult and exhausting children’s tantrums can get.

But, when you give a toddler the drums, he quickly learns to focus his stress into drumming, instead of screaming and kicking as it used to. And, in a matter of minutes, you will get your child from the raging fury of tears and screams into a happy kid playing with its drum.

6. Self-expression

Playing any instrument means that you’re in a way expressing your emotions. If you played anything in your life, you know that you need to put your emotions into the song you’re playing. If you’re stressed, that is most definitely going to be heard in your playing.

When you introduce this concept and apply it to a child, you will quickly notice how important it is to him to learn how to express his feelings.

7. The Gratification of Learning New Things

You can’t expect your toddler to become the new Ginger Baker at an age of 3, but there is an element of real gratification from learning new things in children. Every time a child learns something new, the brain gives them an endorphin rush. This enables a toddler to connect that learning new things in life is good.

When learning how to play drums, you start off with just one or two drums and learn to keep your rhythm. So, there is a rather shallow learning curve, meaning that your toddler is going to be happy and proud of his or her advancement in this area.

8. Developing Listening Skills

As with any instrument, learning how to play from a small age will train your ears much better. The later you start, the tougher you’re going to learn how to listen to music and what you should be listening for. There are no notes in drumming as you usually imagine them, but drums are being tuned and can produce different pitched noises.

Apart from tones, your toddler is going to train quite quickly his or her ear to hear different drums playing at the same time.

Conclusion

Playing drums can be a great way for kids of any age to spend their free time, as it provides several benefits that can help them build both physical and mental skills.

For example, many young children who play drums end up developing superior hand-eye coordination because they have to learn how to use both hands independently at the same time.

In addition, drumming can help develop complex thinking skills or complex thought processes.

Parents must be fully aware of the benefits of allowing their children to play drums so they can decide if learning this instrument would be a good move for them.

For some kids, learning how to play drums might have an exceptional impact on their lives. Some kids will love playing drums, while others might not have the same interest. If your child can learn about different sounds and how to play them together in harmony or rhythm, then they are likely going to be interested in learning the drums.