Last week, I was reminded that how quickly or slowly we present music strategies can make a huge impact on our clients.
Think iso-principle. The iso principle says in a nutshell that we meet our clients where they are are and gradually move them into another state. This could be excited to calm. Calm to excited. Sad to happy. Happy to sad. You get the idea. As music therapists, music is our tool to help bring about this change for our clients.
In my school districts, music therapy sessions are booked back to back to back with only travel time between as needed. One of my teacher’s needed to discuss a particular scheduling conflict with me (I was happy to help!) but that did put me a few minutes behind to the next school, which meant the next school’s session would be shortened by a few minutes because they have a fixed lunch time!
This particular class is a complete joy and is almost always high energy and excited. I hadn’t really noticed myself particularly being slow during their sessions but on this day I was forced to go extremely fast so that we could get everything in! (i.e. really meet them where they were). Definitely outside my comfort zone.
The end result = WOW!
The session was amazing! A group of 7 kids was completely attentive. AND I used 60-70% fewer redirections. AND their accuracy with answering questions correctly also increased.
Now, in this particular case, I didn’t necessarily need to shift them to a different state – just meeting them where they were (extremely energetic and excited and not my version of energetic and excited) made a significant difference.
What a great reminder! What about you? Have you noticed a significant difference (positive or negative) in your kids when you are forced to present strategies or approach a particular situation differently than planned? Leave a comment and let me know!
-Mary
Recent Comments