Singing is one of the first things that parents do with babies when they are born, and parents are constantly singing to toddlers: wordless ditties, choruses and refrains, made-up rhyming songs, anything to comfort them or engage with them. Parents sing, sing, sing in the early years of children’s lives—and then it stops.

What happens?

… read on to find the answer.

I hope my kids remember me being wacky and singing even after they were in school; I did used to make up very silly songs. (It’s also how we taught them our phone number!) But I know, too, that I pretty much stopped singing to them when they got into school. (And I’m guessing they don’t even know that I sang them a song as I rocked them when they were babies. A song that included their own name that I just made up at some point when Brandon, our first, was born.)

Singing brings joy. Singing brings people together. Singing makes us smile. We should do more of it, don’t you think?