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How To Use Music and Rhythm To Regulate Ourselves and Our Kids | With Kira Wiley
Episode 12 • 3rd April 2026 • How To Deal • Attachment Nerd
00:00:00 00:26:28

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Episode Summary

Did you know humming can literally lower your heart rate in the middle of a parenting meltdown? In this episode, Eli is joined by bestselling children's music artist and mindfulness expert Kira Willey to unpack the science of why rhythm is one of the most powerful regulation tools available to parents and kids — and how to start using it today.

From butterfly taps to transition songs to the Ha Ha Hyena game, Kira shares practical, playful, and science-backed strategies that work with how children's brains actually develop — through music, movement, and imagination. Whether you're in the middle of a chaotic morning routine or trying to head off a bedtime meltdown, this episode will change the way you think about the music already in your life.

Key Takeaways

  • Rhythm is structure — the organized, predictable beat of music has a biologically calming effect on the nervous system, even in babies.
  • Humming is a secret superpower — a 2023 study found humming lowers heart rate and increases heart rate variability (HRV), activating the parasympathetic nervous system and reducing stress.
  • Butterfly taps work — rhythmic self-tapping (crossing arms and gently patting your own shoulders) can bring groundedness during moments of high frustration.
  • Music bypasses words — instead of talking at dysregulated kids, music engages entirely different parts of the brain, bringing more attention and focus.
  • Transition songs are magic — a simple song tied to getting in the car, cleaning up toys, or sitting down to dinner creates predictability and reduces meltdowns.
  • Music creates durable memories — information set to melody is remembered differently in the brain. People with dementia can still sing their wedding song when they can't remember family members' names.
  • Singing together releases oxytocin — communal music-making (even just humming or clapping) releases the love and trust hormone, lowers collective heart rate, and builds genuine connection.
  • You are the DJ of your home's vibe — music is the fastest, easiest tool you have to set the emotional tone of any room, any moment.
  • Practice tools before you need them — teach kids breathing games and rhythm exercises during calm times so those tools are ready when big feelings hit.

About the Guest

Kira Willey is an award-winning children's music artist, author, and kids' yoga and mindfulness expert. She is the bestselling author of Breathe Like a Bear and her brand-new book The Joyful Child: Calm the Chaos, Connect with Your Kids, and Create More Happiness in Your Daily Routines. Kira is also the co-creator and host of three PBS mindfulness, music, and yoga television shows and creator of Rockin' Yoga school programs.

Resources Mentioned

  • 📘 The Joyful Child by Kira Willey — Amazon | Penguin Random House
  • 📘 Breathe Like a Bear by Kira Willey — Amazon
  • 🔬 2023 Humming/HRV Study (Trivedi et al., Cureus) — Read the study
  • 🧠 The HALT Framework (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) — a simple self-check tool for knowing when to pause conflict
  • 🎶 Rockin' Yoga School Programs by Kira Willey — kirawilley.com
  • 🖨️ Free Mindfulness Printables for Kids (with book order) — kirawilley.com

Learn more about secure parenting: https://www.attachmentnerd.com/secure-parenting-program

Connect with Eli:

Music by Gold Child: https://www.goldchildmusic.com/

Transcripts

Speaker:

Hi Kira, welcome!

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Hey Eli, it's so nice to be with you.

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I'm so glad you're here.

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We need this help and I am so excited for your expertise and for your new book.

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I am absolutely going to be constantly flipping through it looking for the song that I

might be able to use to help me regulate myself and my kids.

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So you have a background as a music teacher and your mission is to help people use music

to teach kids mindfulness and to help co-regulate.

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Tell us a little bit about how rhythm plays a role in self-regulation.

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One of my favorite things to talk about, rhythm, which is the most basic building block of

music, right?

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You can have rhythm without music, but you can't have music without rhythm, is structure.

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It's order, right?

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If you think about it, if you think of a beat in a great song that you love, it's

organized, right?

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It's one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.

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And that organization feels good in our bodies.

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That structure...

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um that order, that symmetry feels really good in our bodies.

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So it's a regulating, it has a regulating effect and especially for young children.

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Yeah.

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So you think about how you've probably did this with babies.

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I've done this with my babies, pat, pat, pat, pat, right?

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When you hold them.

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mm-hmm.

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that's a regulation tool that you're doing.

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That nice, even, steady rhythm is very calming and regulating.

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So you can use this to, you know, your benefit, especially with young children.

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You were gonna ask me something?

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I saw you, I interrupted you.

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thinking about when my babies were little and we had a couple of colicky babies.

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By a couple, I mean all three of my babies at some point had some colic.

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But I have this memory of my husband and I'm not sure which baby it was, but turning on

like Gregorian chants in the kitchen and just walking around the kitchen island over and

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over again while, you know, in the background is like, and how, uh how?

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oh

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But that instinct in all of us, think, to go towards music to help us regulate, I had

never ever thought about how organizing it is.

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My mind is blown by this because I talk a lot about structure and how important it is for

our kids to have predictability in their environment.

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But how rhythm and music can be that source of structure is such a powerful reminder.

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it's...

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There's ease to that.

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can find music in our bodies, in our hearts, in our minds, on our Spotify, wherever we get

our music and use that in a moment of dysregulation.

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I love that.

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the cognitive, right?

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It bypasses all your grownup words that you wanna use to help your child regulate and

explain this or that or the other thing.

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And it goes right to the body, right?

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It just goes right to the body, yeah.

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say, you know, it's not just to help us regulate our kids, it's also to help regulate

ourselves.

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Can you say a little bit about as, we're in that parent moment, we're feeling disorganized

and overwhelmed.

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What are some ways that we can use rhythm to help us come back to that place of

regulation?

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Yeah, so literally taps on your own body.

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One of the things that we teach children, and it's great for grownups too, is butterfly

taps.

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So just crossing the arms in a gentle tap, right?

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You just...

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of being hugged.

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Right?

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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And, you know, her hands on heart and tapping, um, hands on your lap and tapping, but

you'd be amazed at if you're sitting near your child, you're feeling frustrated.

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Your child is having big feelings.

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Some gentle rhythmic tapping can bring some of that organization and a little bit more

clarity, a little bit more groundedness to the situation.

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It's not going to make the meltdown go away, right?

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But it will do that.

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Another thing you can do is bring in music for yourself, like humming.

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Hmm.

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a really surprising but incredibly powerful tool you can use to ground yourself during a

big moment of upset, right?

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It actually humming stimulates the vagus nerve, which we may have heard about.

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helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system.

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Mm-hmm, which is our calming.

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Yes, our calming system that we want to be in charge, right?

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And it uh makes you breathe more deeply, which as we all know is calming.

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So literally if you just, again, feel yourself giving like this, Frustration rising, heart

rate increasing, home.

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hum a familiar song, hum quietly.

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It'll make you breathe more deeply.

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The vibrations can be very inside your skull and your mouth and your chest have a soothing

and calming effect.

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So it's actually, there was a 2023 study about it that it lowered the heart rate, you

know, and actually increased heart rate variability, which is like a marker of a healthy

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system.

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it's good, literally the beach boys knew it, right?

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I mean, yeah.

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So it's a surprising trick, I mean, music and rhythm have all kinds of incredible benefits

and powers that we may not think about.

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We think of it as like a nice to have, right?

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Tools we can use for all kinds of moments.

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in that we can integrate into that regular experience.

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It's not extracurricular.

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I mean, that's like a whole thing in our education, right?

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It's like, these are the extracurriculars.

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It's like, wait, no, musicality.

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Musicality is our core.

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It's a core piece of who we are.

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I have a friend who, when we were in our early 20s, she had a lot of anxiety when other

people were driving, and she was a musical theater major.

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And so whenever someone stopped short or she felt overwhelmed,

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Instead of like yelling or reacting with harshness she would sing so she'd be literally be

like operatic.

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She'd be like,

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I remember thinking like, that's so brilliant.

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Cause what she's doing is she's making herself feel more safe and she's making it so that

it's less tense in the car with whoever it is that's driving.

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And so a couple of different times when my kids have been getting me to that kind of

volcanic emotional place within myself, I've tried to like sing the eruption out of my

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body.

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And there's such an instinct to then kind of have it go upwards.

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You know, there's some music kind of brings us to our higher self.

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versus it being like outwards, you you don't tend to sing at someone.

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Right?

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That's not an instinct.

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Yeah, maybe.

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But, you know, so I've been in those moments where I'm like, mom is really losing her

mind.

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I'm really losing my mind.

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And it just, it resets my brain.

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I don't think my kids are like so thankful that I started doing that.

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But I think that there's a reminder to our nervous system that like,

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This is singable and if something's singable, we can get through it, right?

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you're doing a couple of other things there.

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You're doing pattern interruption.

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So your children are like, wait, what?

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Right.

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So it just like slams, you know, at the pattern, cuts it immediately.

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And all of a sudden we're doing something different.

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So it can really change the state, change the feeling of what's going on.

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And, you know, it has some humor in it and humor is incredible way to diffuse stress.

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So it's great in all kinds of ways.

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I love it.

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So will you say, okay, so that we can have musical touchstones throughout our day as well.

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So it's not just about, you know, dealing with those highly dysregulated moments and using

music to hum our ways or sing our ways out of it, but it's also using music as a

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touchstone, as sort of a signal.

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Can you say more about how we do that?

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Yes, so music is an incredible way.

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to smooth transitions, right?

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To create these points during the day that are predictable and feel safe and secure for

children.

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And I know you know and talk a lot about this, right?

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Security and stability and knowing what comes next are incredibly calming and just feel

really good to young children.

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So the more that we can incorporate music as touchstones throughout the day, for example,

a getting in the car song.

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Every time we get in the car, many of us will say the

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same words over and over.

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Which leads me to a whole other point.

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I won't go off on this tangent now, but we talk at young children a lot.

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They get talked at all the time.

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Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, instruction, instruction, instruction, right?

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So if you can even just interrupt that, great, you're going to get more engagement.

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But beyond that, if you engage them by using music with those instructions set to a beat,

set to a familiar melody, could be Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, could be something that

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you make up.

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Mm-hmm.

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of a sudden you're engaging their brain completely differently.

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Because what happens in a child's brain is when you speak, the part of the brain

responsible for auditory processing lights up as it should.

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When you use music or rhythm, that complexity is processed in a different way.

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Different parts of the brain light up.

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So more oxygen, more blood flow is going to the brain.

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It's more engaged, right?

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It's more focused.

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It's more primed and able to listen to you.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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like a street performer and there's like a beautiful music coming, like, you know, our

brains go, huh?

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It's like we're drawn to it, right?

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Like, what is that?

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What's that sound?

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It feels good.

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It feels, now you've got me just thinking about the way that music organizes us.

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It feels predictable.

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It feels organized.

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How lovely.

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So when we're...

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fun to hear like get in the car, get your seatbelt on, get it done, do the dirt or like,

let's get in the car, or something that you make up.

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I'm making, what's more fun?

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let's hear it.

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steal this when my son was little because we were having such a hard time getting morning

routine.

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And so was like big meltdowns about getting dressed, different things.

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So we would just go, we get up, we get dressed, we eat some breakfast, we brush our teeth,

we comb our hair, we put our shoes on, we're out of here.

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And it was like he could memorize that.

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And it helped.

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It helped create some like authority to the

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the order of operations, which was really helpful for him.

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Because I think for me, my process as a grownup is like, you might want to eat breakfast

before you get dressed.

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You want to get dressed before you breakfast.

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And so I can do that disorder and still maintain that process and get it all done.

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But for his little brain, that was overwhelming.

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And so it so helpful to have it in an order.

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And that was just the song we made.

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Very jazzy, very jazzy vibes.

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First of all, fantastic song.

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It needs some keys.

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It needs a little tst, tst, tst, you know, type of thing, which would be so good.

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But that's exactly it.

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And it helps children know what's coming next, right?

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If you have a song you always sing when it's time to come to the table for dinner or when

it's time to clean up the toys and move to the next thing, we know what's coming next.

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And to your point about steps of instructions, you know, it's hard for children to

remember the first do this, then do this, then do this.

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When it's in a song, when we attach information to a melody, it is so much easier to

remember.

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Think of how many grownups in this country, at least, learned the alphabet, right?

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The ABC song.

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No, many children, I still sometimes sing it when I'm like, where does P come before,

right?

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Like, I mean, because you will never forget it if you learned it that way.

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And children who are basically, they're basically pre-verbal.

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They can sing the ABC song and remember because it works differently in our brain.

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When we attach information to a melody, it's remembered differently.

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Those memories are more durable and it's incredible.

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have been studies with older people with dementia or Alzheimer's whose memories are

really, really damaged.

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They can't remember friends, family members, what they had for breakfast.

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They can sing their wedding song.

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I know those memories are more durable.

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So it's really powerful.

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More durable.

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Yeah.

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that is so powerful.

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You got me all emotional because something like, my gosh, all of us want to imprint like

positive love filled memories with our children and that music helps us do that.

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know that, oh, okay.

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So you just, you have me going to do two things with my family immediately after our call.

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One is I am going to pick a song.

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that is our, it's time to come to dinner song, because that's been an area where it's kind

of hard to shuffle everyone in and we all have different relationships to our hunger and

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getting to the dinner table and all that.

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So I'm like, oh, maybe it'll be who let the dogs out.

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Who let the dogs out?

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But that's gonna help.

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I love this.

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So having that cue for it's time for and using music like that is so brilliant.

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I may use it for a few other things, but that one for sure.

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And then I'm also thinking about um

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just the ways that I can teach right now.

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have two six year old twins and like they're learning how to deal with conflict and all of

that.

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And so coming up with maybe a couple of little jingles, maybe you already have one in your

book, but to talk about how to take a break when you're feeling really angry.

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Like that was just one I thought of like, oh, how could I write a song that's like, I'm

feeling mad.

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It's feeling bad.

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I want to hit someone on the head, but instead

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I take a break.

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I don't know.

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It was like make something up like that.

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m

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pretty quickly, because these are gold.

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These are gold.

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Yeah, or like, yeah.

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type of a thing or anything off the top of your head around that?

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Okay.

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the H-A-L-T, you know, the hungry, angry, what's the L for?

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And tired, lonely and tired, exactly.

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Like that could be a song right there, because any of those is a reason to pause and

revisit it later.

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You know, it's a rap.

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It's an H-A-L-R-T.

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You know, we're going to take a break for you and me, you whatever it is.

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But yeah, but I love that, because I guarantee you those.

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songs or jingles or whatever you call them in 25 years your kids will remember them.

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They'll be like mom remember that song we used to sing when we were fighting and you want

us to take a break and remember that every time you want us to come to the dinner they

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will remember those.

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Do you think they'll remember all your instructions that you would say?

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No but they'll remember they'll remember those songs they will remember those songs.

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the music.

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You know, which that makes me think of there's this quote, I use it all the time, my

Angelo said, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people

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will never forget how you made them feel.

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And I think that's what music gives us is the feeling.

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And then it does actually help us remember what people said.

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You know, but it's.

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does, yeah, but it's also, I say in the book, you're essentially the DJ of the vibe in

your house, right?

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What do want the vibe to be?

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You know, or on a road trip, you're the DJ of the vibe.

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Do you want to create a dreamy, like, let's take a nap, stay in the backseat?

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Do you want us to be car seat, you know, backseat dancing and like it's a road trip bump,

right?

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You can just set same thing in your kitchen when you're cooking dinner.

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Same thing when it's, it's time to clean up the toys.

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You can decide the vibe.

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and music is like your tool that can take you anywhere.

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Yeah.

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um

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And there's so much uh joy and connection that comes from being musical together and

listening to music.

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I we try to turn on, you know, music in the dinner room or when we're cooking or when

we're just hanging around.

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Saturday mornings, driving to school, my son is great at picking like a first morning

song, like some of kind of jives you up and like, yeah.

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So there's something about that.

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you know, just making memories together, right?

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my gosh, connection.

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The connection that is created when you create music together, and that can be as simple

as singing a simple song together, vocalizing, chanting, clapping rhythms together.

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It releases oxytocin, which is that love and trust hormone that makes us feel good.

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And the great example I love to give is like, you know, when you're at a concert, a big

concert, and they finally play the song everyone's been waiting to hear.

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The hit, everyone knows every word to, you've got your arms around the people next to you,

swaying and singing, and you're like, I love these people, right?

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And you feel like you have 40,000 new best friends.

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That's oxytocin.

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That's action.

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And the thing is that way back in tribal days, we used to connect with music as a regular.

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know, occurrence, right?

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Whether it was in houses of worship or tribes chanting or whatever it was.

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And by and large, it's been lost in modern society.

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And it, you know, for most people, singing in a group or singing together doesn't happen

very often, right?

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Only at the concert, maybe in church, right?

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Something like that, sure.

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But

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You know, so that's something that I feel is a real loss for us because singing together,

whether that's with your child or anyone else, releases that oxytocin.

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It brings the collective heart rate down.

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It creates feeling of connection and bonding and trust.

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It's a stress reliever.

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I mean, it's just so good for you in so many ways.

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So when you sing with your child, it's that moment of connection where the power dynamic

is gone.

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Right?

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You're on a level playing field, so to speak.

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And that felt sense of, we're just on the same team, we're singing this song together, can

restore or create a connection with your child that can, it's just so strong and so

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powerful, right?

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That can head off a meltdown in itself.

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But it also can create these just really sweet moments, particularly at bedtime, you know,

at a tough time.

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um

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travel time, you name it, but it just it creates a very, very powerful moment of

connection between you and your child.

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I love that.

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Well, it was also just thinking you were talking and if you have a partner or if there are

other adults in your house with you too, like that dynamic can also have a musicality to

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it, right?

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Like I think for a lot of people, especially when you have young children, like there's a

tenseness of like, I'm doing this and you're doing this and don't do it like that.

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And how are we going to do this?

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And I'm reminded my husband turned on some Taylor Swift a couple of nights ago and we were

all in the kitchen and it was

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the Ophelia song, which I just really get into.

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And I was like dancing and spinning and I caught him looking at me.

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It was like remembering parts of me that used to be more out and active before I was a

parent.

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You know, I had less responsibility, right?

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So it's like there was just more time to dance, more time to be silly, more time to be

free.

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uh And I was doing these spins and he was so cute.

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He was like.

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those were really good.

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And he like said to my kids, was like, did you see mom's spins?

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just so everyone knows, I'm a terrible dancer.

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So he's absolutely not telling the truth.

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But I think for him, what he was witnessing was like something beautiful rising up in me

that drew him into me in that moment, right?

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And that drew me back to him.

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he drew to me, you know, there's like sort of like this thing and that was music that did

that, right?

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That was the music in the room that allowed that.

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And then my kids were drawn into that.

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as well and so we're all sort of spinning around and dancing to Taylor and there's this

this oxytocin being passed between all of us not just me and the kids but also me and my

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husband and that that musicality I think is what really helps kids feel a sense of

belonging you know it's like oh this is where I belong

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I belong here.

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I'm comfortable enough to spin and dance and be goofy.

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And what a gift to give your children to see you with that joy, with that abandon, right?

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That you're a whole person with your own joys, with things that light you up.

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I mean, that's just a wonderful gift to give them to show that spinning in the kitchen is

a worthwhile thing to be doing.

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This is a beautiful thing to be doing because of joy.

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The one caveat is that I have a child now in adolescence, so I have an 11 year old.

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And so I don't he doesn't always receive my dancing and singing as joy.

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It's also can be received as just purely embarrassing.

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But as long as I do it inside the house, we're pretty safe as long as there's no

onlookers.

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But I think I mean that on a deep level, I do know that there is still security in that

for him, because it's like, oh, my my mom is a

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a person who knows how to have some fun too.

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And that creates trust.

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Like we want to be around people who know how to hold and harness joy and music can help

us do that.

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Plus, I mean, honestly, there's something about that movement too.

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mean, like we're all getting exercise.

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Well, exactly, and music and rhythm are an easy way to get your child enough movement

during the day.

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Super fun, super easy.

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Dance party in the kitchen, hopping to the beat, know, whatever it is.

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Like, many big feelings explode and upsetness and meltdowns happen just because children

haven't had enough movement.

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You know, young children develop from the bottom up.

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The physical coordination, the movement, the free play, all that kind of stuff has to

happen before the executive function develops.

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lots of children who have a hard time holding still or following directions just haven't

had enough movement because all their brains are doing are going, don't wiggle, don't

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wiggle.

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I'm not supposed to wiggle.

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I was told to sit still, right?

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So they have no capacity left over.

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Mm-hmm.

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those three steps you just gave them.

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They're just, all they can do is try to hold their bodies still.

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And the reason is they haven't moved enough.

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yeah, and you see kids going to school, you know, and that happening all day long and then

coming home and then they're, you know, they aren't able anymore to restrain their bodies.

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Yeah, versus, you know, if we integrate this throughout their day, and I mean, I think a

lot of teachers have caught onto this and are working through that, but it's just a good

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reminder too at home.

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Tell us about the ha ha hyena game.

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Ha ha, Yuna, it's just a great release.

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All the mindful activities in my book are based in play, music, movement, imagination.

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There are no, sit still on a cushion, close your eyes and breathe, although there is

nothing wrong with that to be totally clear.

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But they tap into how children naturally learn and how they naturally engage, right?

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Love it.

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through music and movement and play and imagination.

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So ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

ha ha ha ha ha ha

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and it turns into a real laughter pretty quick.

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And laughter is a great release.

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And when you do it together with your child and you play the song pairing, in my book

there's a song pairing for every exercise.

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So you play the song, laugh a little more, and all of a sudden you're laughing like

hyenas.

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The release that happens of pent up energy, excess tension, negativity, crankiness,

complaining, whatever, is remarkable.

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60 seconds later, two minutes later, the air is clear.

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Right?

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It's like a breeze just blew through and you're both like, what were we cranky about?

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can't remember.

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you're completing the stress cycle.

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I think that's something that we really struggle with in modern life is the physical

release of stress.

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And so, you know, you're ha ha ha ha ha.

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Yeah, right.

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You can't do it and not start laughing for real.

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that.

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love it.

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So, I mean, and you can play ha ha, you know, anywhere, right?

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That's that's a game you can play in the car whatever.

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What about the hot?

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What about the hot air balloon game?

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Yes, hot air balloon is simply filling up your hot air balloon like this.

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And letting it out.

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And you're filling up your hot air balloon to go wherever you want.

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Magically in the world, you can decide where you want to go on your adventure.

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But what children don't realize it's it's kind of sneaky, right?

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Is that they're regulating right there.

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They're drawing in these short little sniffs of air, exhaling, taking a long exhale, which

creates that calm, that grounded sense that we want.

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It's great breath work disguised as play, as imagination, right?

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And again, there's a song that goes with it called Up in the Air.

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You play the song, you fill up your hot air balloon, you go on this magical ride, a

minute, two minutes, and you're in a completely different head space.

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oh

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ideally we do this not just when dysregulation comes into the room, but kind of as a fun

thing we're doing all the time so that it's familiar to our kids as a game, right?

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the point of the book.

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Although there's one chapter, it's called SOS, you know, your first aid kit for big

feelings.

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But the rest of the chapters are based on time of day where you incorporate these quick,

simple, and like super fun and kid-friendly mindful activities just in your daily

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routines.

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And then what happens is there are these connection points.

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So you're building that connection like we talked about.

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They're giving children these tools that become completely familiar when they're calm.

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Hmm.

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that then when the you know what hits the fan, right, they're familiar.

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They feel good in their bodies already.

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They already know how to do hot air balloon or bear breath or hot chocolate or whatever it

is.

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And so it's at the ready when things start to get escalated, right?

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When frustration rises, when disappointment hits, whatever it is, they've got the tool in

their toolbox, so to speak, right?

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It's like, it's like first, you you think about first responders.

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Mm-hmm.

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who are so calm when a crisis hits.

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And it's because they've practiced those tools over and over and over and over and over

when it's not an emergency.

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That's why.

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Now it's like second nature.

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I know what to do.

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So same thing with children.

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If we do a hot cocoa breath every night at bedtime when things are rosy and it's just what

we do, now when bedtime becomes a struggle, when we're really upset, when we're feeling

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worried or anxious, we know how to do it.

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We've been doing it every night and it will be a really, really powerful tool.

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I love it.

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And I just love the invitation to use music and rhythm as one of our primary ways of

regulating ourselves throughout the day and in moments of distress.

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:

So we're so excited about your book.

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Okay.

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The title of your book is The Joyful Child.

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Remind us of the subtitle.

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The Joyful Child, it is calm the chaos, connect with your kids, and create more happiness

in your daily routines.

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We can't wait to get it.

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Where can people find you?

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Where can they find your book and any other resources you have available for parents?

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the book is at thejoyfulchildbook.com.

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I am at kirawilly.com.

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Reach out, please.

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We have a wonderful set of printables for kids that are free when you order the book and

all kinds of resources for parents and for educators.

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:

Well, thank you so much.

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We absolutely loved having you here and I cannot wait to go and work on some of this.

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I appreciate that.

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Thank you for having me.

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You're welcome.

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