When learning about learning in infants and pre-schoolers, keep music in mind. A singing parent imparts a sense of love and security, and that sense is an absolute precondition to learning. And music appears to aid in the creation of new connections in the brain during a child’s first three years. It encourages learning in what experts call multiple domains. It helps language development because music and lyrics are languages. It nurtures socialization skills because the child learns to sing back, which is participatory learning. It aids in memory and pattern recognition for sure, and it teaches children that it’s possible to modify emotions (think how lullabies can calm children down). And that’s emotional intelligence. As if that weren’t enough, singing and playing, or listening to music with a child, begins that child’s life-long love affair with music, one of our oldest cultural forms of expression.