Friday, March 23, 2007

Music soothes the savage beast


Hyperion had good behavior marks the last two days. In an effort to reward good behavior rather than punishing bad behavior, we decided to try to come up with rewards for him.

We've noticed that his behavior is much better when he's listening to music (any kind of music), so Mr. Gaia ordered him a cheap MP3 player (he has a portable CD player but it eats batteries like you wouldn't believe, plus CDs are not really 6yo friendly). We replaced the earbuds with headphones and left the plastic protector on it.

So we gave it to him tonight. I swear, it's like he was on a sedative. He ate quietly and quickly (we normally do family meals, but tonight was a relaxed night where we just ate when we were hungry). He took his vitamins and brushed his teeth without complaint. He sat quietly while Oceanus got ready for bed.

It was night and day. I don't know if it will last, but it was definitely worth every penny Mr. Gaia spent for the MP3 player and every minute he spent loading it with music, even if it only lasts a few days.

2 comments:

Tanya Brown said...

That's fascinating! I wonder if he's musically inclined? (Or on a related note, mathematically inclined.)

It's marvelous that you've found this out. There's a new spectrum of positive, pleasurable things you can do with him, such as picking out music for his player.

Well, you've done this remarkable thing. I don't suppose you could figure out how to speed up my son's speech development a bit while you're at it? 8>)

Gaia said...

I can't take credit for the discovery. My MIL figured it out.

I've been told that to speed up speech development, sign language works wonders. It enables them to get their point across without getting frustrated about not having the words come out of their mouth.