Aida Fernández Vázquez She has a degree in Psychology from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Master in Behavior Therapy from the U.N.E.D. Director of the "Aida Fernández, Psychology and Training" center where she performs psychological intervention in children, youth and adults. He also gives training workshops for fathers and mothers, businesses, the unemployed, associations, etc. She is the author of the blog Is it normal what happens to me? His new project is called "Baby Do-Re-Mi" which are music stimulation workshops for babies and children from 0 to 4 years.
We bring an interview with Aida to explain to us how he has combined his extensive musical training with his experience in the field of psychology and teaching to offer the parents of Castellón de la Plana a new way to stimulate their children through music and enjoy with the family.
What are the music stimulation workshops?
The workshops are specifically designed to stimulate all areas of intellectual, social, emotional and motor development through rhythm, percussion, body movement, senses and musical instruments. These workshops are aimed at the initial period of life, that is, babies and children from three months to four years accompanied by their mothers and / or fathers.
In these workshops, different musical activities and games are shared with the family, where motor and cognitive skills are explored and researched, attention and listening skills are acquired, social and family relationships and communication are developed and encouraged, and we awaken the imagination. , the innate curiosity and creativity of the little ones.
The activities carried out in the musical stimulation workshops for babies provide many benefits to our children. For example, develop sensitivity by helping them to express feelings and expressions of affection. It also improves your ability to concentrate, encourages your imagination and creative ability, stimulates logical, mathematical and verbal reasoning and prevents possible problems in language acquisition.
The benefits of music stimulation workshops also extend to the family environment because the significant presence of fathers and mothers sharing the game and multi-sensory discovery offers the necessary confidence and security and favors the essential intimate contact when it comes to narrowing the emotional bond and build a solid and lasting family relationship.
The musical stimulation workshop is the time of the week that we give ourselves to enjoy our kids and strengthen the bond from this early age.
Why can music help during therapy?
Music has always accompanied the human being. From the first moments of our lives we are surrounded by percussive sounds: rattles, rattles, bells, drums, palms, etc. Percussion and singing are the first means by which all babies begin to express themselves musically: laleo, patting, hitting objects, waving their arms, etc. being a source of joy and satisfaction for them.
Music is being introduced at an earlier age due to the importance in motor, intellectual, auditory, sensory and emotional development. It should be added that this stage constitutes one of the most fertile and critical periods in the intellectual and personal development of our children. Music provides the child with greater power of concentration, in addition to improving his ability to learn. In turn, it makes it easier for children to learn other languages, enhancing their visual, motor and auditory memory.
Finally, music has the ability to bring people closer. The child who lives in contact with music learns to live better with other children, establishing a more harmonious communication. At this stage the music loves them. It gives them emotional security, confidence, because they feel understood when sharing songs, and they are immersed in a climate of help, collaboration and mutual respect.
What is your experience with music?
I started studying music theory with five years and piano at age six. At this same age he also belonged to the choir of the School of Music. From a very young age I listened to classical music at home and attended a variety of shows and musical concerts: The National Orchestra of Spain, bands, Zarzuelas, Musicals, etc. Always accompanied by my parents.
They were very special years in which I learned to collaborate with older people and other music students. Feel the responsibility of the study, effort and perseverance. And satisfaction when you manage to play a piece that has more difficulty, exposure to the public at concerts and nerve control, the sense of rhythm; etc. And above all, the love of music that will always remain in me and that I transmit to my students and their parents.
Who is performing musical stimulation in Spain?
Early music education is one of the great advances of the twentieth century. The concern for music education is revealed by a series of musicians and pedagogues such as Orff, Kodaly, Dalcroze, Willens, Violeta Hemsy or Witack, who questioning the traditional way of teaching music will consider that music education has to be carried out in a game environment, joy and confidence, so that creativity develops. In this way, a series of musical methodologies will emerge that have been developed for years with great success, both in Europe and in America. Not forgetting the great contributions of Spanish teachers such as Natalia Velilla, Elisa Roche, Angulo, Elena Huidobro, among many others.
In Spain, in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, there are already numerous private centers, educational centers, AMPAS (Associations of mothers and school fathers), cultural associations and Town Halls that have incorporated musical stimulation workshops as extracurricular activities, thus offering offer to the great demand on the part of fathers and mothers that their sons and daughters receive musical stimulation. Currently, I am introducing the importance of music in children in Castellón de la Plana, a city where I live, through Baby Do-Re-Mi, music stimulation workshops for babies and children.
How can these techniques be applied at school?
The music stimulation workshops are designed as an extracurricular activity for the little ones. It is essential that the classes be as playful as possible since play at these ages is an integral part of children. The people who teach these workshops must be professionals with musical and psycho-pedagogical knowledge and must use specific musical instruments for children.
What emotional deficiencies do you identify in the parents you deal with and how do you try to solve it?
Educating children is an arduous task that is not always rewarded. Therefore, fathers and mothers demand the need for support, advice and training to educate their children, regardless of their age. Currently, we find family models that are not always adequate, since in some of them, immediacy, easy reward, competitiveness, the continuous search for positive emotions, material objectives, the absence of obligations and responsibilities, excessive protection prevail , etc. On the contrary, the excessive use of prohibitions and the imposition of norms of coercive form, only leads us to increase distance between our children, and even, in some cases, to present aggressive behaviors.
Fathers and mothers have difficulty in communicating in an appropriate and assertive manner with their teenage children.
For example, how to address the child's anger, how to have a conversation or how to help him in his studies. This difficulty and lack of communication skills causes parents to misunderstand their child's changes, feelings of fear, guilt, insecurity, worry and a feeling of lack of control. Training for parents in communication skills, negotiation strategies, expression techniques and emotional self-regulation is essential for the healthy and balanced growth of our children, for the enhancement of their abilities, to avoid school failure and also, for the increase of control and satisfaction as parents.
What communication skills do children have to improve and especially at what age is it important to start doing so?
First of all, I would like to start from the fact that in the general population there is a lack of adequate self-regulation of emotions that is becoming one of the biggest problems of developed societies. Thus appear the unprocessed sadness, which is manifested in depression, and overflowed and unchanged anger, which is expressed through violence. That is, when emotions are not expressed and channeled correctly, they give rise to a variety of personal and social problems.
Children, the younger they are, express emotions with greater intensity and in a more natural and spontaneous way. The younger the child, the less his emotional expression will have been culturally repressed.
Currently, there is a lack of communication and emotional expression in children that, in many cases, results in disruptive behaviors, tantrums, lack of self-control, low tolerance for frustration, poor emotional awareness, lack of social skills -emotional as well as a decrease in self-esteem and self-concept.
To avoid or minimize this lack of communicational capacity it is essential that emotions be redirected and expressed in an adaptive manner. For example, a child who holds tantrums at age six is a child with serious difficulties in channeling his anger properly. For all these reasons, parents, educators and psychologists have to teach children to express and channel their emotions in a constructive way. The fact of being able to express them correctly will depend to a large extent on the environment in which the child develops, and on how emotional expression is encouraged or repressed. There is no specific age to start working in the expression of emotions, in fact, it is recommended that we begin to identify the emotions that arise in our children from birth. See how they evolve and guide them little by little, showing them how to express them in an adequate and satisfactory way.
What can we find readers in your blog?
My blog is called Is what happens to me normal? It is a question that many of us have asked ourselves at some point in our lives. Sometimes we feel that we are going through unusual situations, that cause us different sensations and thoughts and that, in many cases, unbalance and worry us. Therefore, I created this blog in order to answer these questions we ask ourselves. He wanted to bring psychology closer to more people, demystify the image of the psychologist, but above all, that the person can better understand what is tormenting and worrying him, that he is aware that he can ask for help, that he can go to a psychology professional .
In my blog I publish articles on varied topics, always related to Psychology. You can read about childhood problems: childhood jealousy, childhood stress, anxiety problems, mood, alcohol intake control, skills to improve self-esteem, etc. In each article an explanation of the subject is always carried out accompanied by a series of strategies for those who want to apply it in their day to day.
We finish the interview thanking Aida your generosity with answers so detailed that they will surely make us reflect on the parents. And it is that Aida is right when it indicates that we have to improve and strive to resolve how to communicate in the best possible way with our children especially when they begin to grow and reach adolescence.
