Tuneful Teens

Hello there!

I have been doing my very best to keep on my weekly Wednesday blog schedule.

But with a 13-month-old, a new house to move into, and a full work schedule, it’s been hard to stay on track!

Today, though, I’m back at it and this post is all about the Tuneful Teens E-Book.

Tuneful Teens holds a very special place in my heart. It was the very first E-Book I created and I love the ideas inside. Those are some of my most frequently used and most popular musical experiences with my teen groups (especially the musical games!)

I hear all the time from other music therapists about how hard it is to find resources for working with teens. So I created Tuneful Teens because I wanted to compile an easy to reference book of musical experiences that address a variety of goal areas.

I love hearing feedback from music therapists who’ve used the ideas in Tuneful Teens and met with success however ‘success’ is defined (positive feedback from clients, positive feedback from staff, more goals and objectives met within a session or simply a client remaining in the session for its entirety).

One email I recently received from Jansen Williams touched me (in particular because of how she describes her student’s responses when a group member drops a tambourine).

Here is that email, shared with her permission:

“Amy,
I purchased Tuneful Teens a couple years ago and have used various interventions from it at different times.  I just have to tell you THANK YOU for sharing your awesome ideas and share a success story with you!  

I have been seeing middle school and high school-aged students at a private school for three weeks now.  They are all very high functioning and have various diagnoses, primarily autism, asperger’s, and anxiety.  Each week the sessions have gone well, but have required MANY prompts for them to stay on task, listen, and be respectful to their peers (not a surprise for this age!).  I have been addressing respect for others and teamwork. 

I used the Social Skills Hearts game and adapted it for this group.  I sang “Count on Me” by Bruno Mars.  I included some questions from the Tuneful Teens book (i.e. “Give someone a compliment”) and included other questions that relate to friends, social situations that occur at school (i.e. “What should you say if someone is distracting you in the classroom?”), respect, and emotions (i.e. “How does it make you feel when someone interrupts you while you are talking?”). 

One student has had difficulty remaining in the room and participating.  He stayed in the room for the full session (with lots of prompting, which was okay!).  He dropped the tambourine several times due to anxiety, and the other students were independently offering him support such as, “We’re not mad at you. I thought it was kind of neat how the tambourine made that sound.”  They were ALL laughing, giving honest and very great answers, AND LISTENING TO EACH OTHER!!!!  It went 10x better than I ever expected!  Lots of laughter, smiles, listening, and thoughtful/respectful comments occurred. 

I had some other interventions planned for the session after social skills hearts, but we only had time for this as they were very engaged in the intervention. I am still on cloud 9 about all three of those sessions that occurred on Monday.  It was so awesome hearing all of the positive feedback from the teachers and school administrator who observed the sessions at various times!  They were all amazed at how the students responded and respected each other, too!  Again, THANK YOU!!!!”
– Jansen Williams

Whenever I receive an email like that it makes me so happy.

I know firsthand how hard it can sometimes be to keep teen groups interested and engaged. But I also know that if you have musical experiences that are engaging and enjoyable, your clients are more likely to accomplish the goals you’ve set for them.

If you’re feeling a little stumped when it comes to session planning, or if you feel like the musical experiences you’re doing could use a little boost, check out the entire collection of teen resources I have available. (We even have combo packs available that offer the best value!)

Tuneful Teens & Tuneful Teens 2 were just updated with all brand new, fresh, hot pop songs, so be sure to check those resources out here!