It’s unfortunate, but many times parents say their child has to be “punished” for not doing well in school so they take music lessons away from them. While this may help in the short term for time management, it doesn’t help in the long term for the child learning.

Just because a child enjoys music lessons doesn’t mean there isn’t great educational value in the lessons. Would you take away math lessons if the child wasn’t doing well in science class? of course not. So why take away music lessons?

Music lessons actually IMPROVE a child’s ability to learn. Research shows there is a significant link between music instruction and cognitive growth in certain “nonmusical” abilities, such as math, memory, and spatial-temporal reasoning. But it doesn’t stop there. Music education also helps reading language abilities and listening skills. It enhances the maturation process and has been proven to reduce disciplinary problems.

I know of no other activity that has such a strong influence on so many aspects of a child’s growth as music.

But don’t take my word for it. Jeanne Akin wrote a master’s thesis on the topic entitled Music Makes a Difference and in it she documents numerous studies that show the value of music education to learning the “core” curriculum.

Here are highlights from a summary of Ms. Akin’s findings:

• Arts education leads to cognitive and basic skills development (Medeja 1978) (Milley 1984).
• Arts education increases interest in academic learning (Kaufman 1976).
• Music lessons can lead to interest in academics (Olanoff & Kirschner 1969
• High school music students have been shown to hold higher grade point averages (GPA) than non-musicians in the same school (Horne 1983).
• In reading for meaning, music students can out-achieve non-music students (Friedman 1959).
• Children who have received school keyboard music lessons score higher in mathematics and history than students not in the program, although their IQ scores are no higher than the other students’ (ESEA 1969).
• Receiving increased music instruction can lead to increased learning in mathematics (Malester 1986).
• Research indicates that music instruction promotes academic achievement (Horne 1983).
• There are many research studies that show a connection between music education and reinforcement for academic tasks (Madsen 1981).
• The study of music produces the development of academic achievement skills (State of California 1986).
• Brain research shows that music and arts activities develop the intellect (Sinatra 1986).
• Music and arts enriched curriculum can be a factor in raising IQ scores for second graders (Mathison 1977).
• Learning to play a musical instrument helps students to develop faster physically, mentally, emotionally and socially (Mueller 1984).
• There is a high relationship between high self-perception, high cognitive competence scores, general self-esteem and interest in school music (Lillemyre 1983).
• Disciplinary problems are reduced in school systems which have arts programs (Arts, Education and Americans 1980).
• Music education improves student listening skills (Kohanski 1970).
• Research indicates that reading music can improve reading language abilities in slow young learners (Tucker 1981).
• Eye-hand coordination needed to learn to write can be developed by learning to play an instrument (Wishey 1980).
• Kindergarten basic skills achievement increases when music and other arts are added to the curriculum (Minicucci 1981).

Courtesy: MENC: The National Association for Music Education

If you want or need to take something away as punishment, consider the cellphone, the ipod, facebook or twitter. Or rather than instilling punishment perhaps try tutoring if your child is struggling in school.