My eight-year-old (who you know as my little birder) took piano lessons for nine months, enjoyed it for awhile, and then decided that the piano wasn’t for him. We had told him we wouldn’t make him continue lessons, if he didn’t like it, and we were true to our word.

However, he was good at it! He understood music — a lot like his older brother. We thought it would be a shame if he were to quit music altogether, so my husband had the idea to take him to the music shop and look at all the instruments.

A nice young man who worked there let my son try every instrument they had. Guitar, strings, horns, woodwinds, you name it! It was very educational for all of us.

My eight-year-old, who was seven at the time, liked a couple of instruments better than others, but he was still undecided when the young man brought out the last instrument: the cello. It was a quarter-size cello, which was just the right size for the (then) seven-year-old. When he sat my son in a chair and showed him how to hold the cello, my son’s face lit up like the sun! We knew we had found his instrument.

We’ve been lucky to find a well-qualified (and awesome) teacher, and he’s been taking lessons since last August. It’s a very difficult instrument to learn, so I’m quite pleased that he has given no indication that he wants to quit. He has made it clear that for him, it’s just a hobby (unlike his brother), which is fine with us. We’re thrilled he’s learning an instrument and that he likes it.

Learning an instrument is so good for children’s brains. Have you heard about some of the research about that? I particularly enjoy this video: