Rhythmicity for your children

A Rhythmicity Instinct

By Rodger C Bailey, MS

My experience is that rhythmic activity is used by the body to build appropriate timing circuits. These well formed timing circuits move children naturally and normally through developmental stages. Those children not exposed to rhythmic activity are susceptible to Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD).

Do we humans have a instinct to be rhythmic?
How would we know if a behavior is instinctual?
What is instinct?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Instinct is the inherent disposition of a living organism toward a particular action. Instincts are generally inherited patterns of responses or reactions to certain kinds of stimuli. In humans they are most easily observed in behaviors such as emotions, sexual drive, and other bodily functions, as these are largely biologically determined.

We often see adults performing rhythmic behaviors with infants. Adults will hold an infant and jiggle the child to keep the child calm. This might be up-and-down movement or side-to-side movement. Infants tell adults which movement is most calming for them. Adults want crying babies to be calm, so they quickly learn which form of rhythmic movement this child likes. No one needs to tell the adult that the child needs to by jiggled. The adult knows. This seems to be an 'inherent disposition . . . toward a particular action' as defined for an instinct. Adults naturally jiggle the infant.

When infants have enough strength in their legs to hold themselves up (with help), they often start performing rhythmic movements. They bob up and down rhythmically while 'standing'. Many children at this age, are given bouncy seats which hang by bungee cords from the ceiling and the children use these seats to bounce themselves. Infants in these seats do not sit still. As soon as the find they can make the seat bounce, they bounce and every time they get in the seat, they bounce. This also seems to be an 'inherent disposition . . . toward a particular action' as defined for an instinct. The child naturally tries to bounce.

When we stand a child on a bed, the child naturally and normally starts to bounce. We adults might tell the child to stop bouncing, but the natural tendency of the child is to bounce. Again, his seems to be an 'inherent disposition . . . toward a particular action' as defined for an instinct. Again, the child naturally tries to bounce.

Primitive cultures around the world have many ongoing rhythmic activities. The majority of games for children are rhythmic. The majority of the ceremonies for these villages are rhythmic. When village members get together for a task, they usually perform these tasks in rhythm to a song or chant. Primitive cultures all have a strong tendency to be rhythmic in all activities (work, play, and ceremony). When all primitive cultures around the world focus strongly on rhythmic behaviors, this is another example of an 'inherent disposition . . . toward a particular action' as defined for an instinct. If there is a strong tendency for all primitive cultures around the world to be rhythmic, this universal tendency toward rhythmicity did not come about by chance. There must be a biological drive of some kind for rhythmicity to be so universal across primitive cultures.

One African culture has a wonderful rhythmic game for boys. The boys stand in a circle facing the back of the boy on their right. They put their right hand on the right shoulder of the boy in front and lift their left leg. They use their left hand to take the left leg of the boy in front of them. Now they are all balancing on their right legs, in a circle. The leader starts the chant that goes with this game, and the boys start jumping in unison to the beat of the chant. The younger children groups jump a few inches, and the older children groups jump 12 to 15 inches high. They maintain the jumping, in unison, until one of them loses the rhythm and they all fall down. Usually, they fall on the one who loses the rhythm. This game teaches group rhythm and provides strong peer pressure to have good rhythmicity.

We have seen that rhythmic activities seem to be natural across cultures. We have seen that adults and infants and children will start and maintain rhythmic movements. We have seen that primitive cultures emphasize rhythmic activities for all members of that culture. Patty-cake, jump-rope, and rocking still remain fully engrained in opur modern culture.

We know from experience that good rhythmicity is directly related to coordination as well as focus and concentration. We also know that those with poor rhythmicity are usually considered to be developmentally delayed (they have PDD). When PDD children learn good rhythmicity, they pick up where they were stuck developmentally and move forward developmentally in a natural way.

I suggest that there is a rhythmicity instinct, and the biological need supporting this instinct is for the appropriate development of these rhythmic circuits; these timing circuits which are needed for good physical and mental performance. I suggest that these well-formed timing circuits are the engine that drives the developmental process.