Powerful voices: Young children using spontaneous singing at home as an empowerment strategy

Abstract

As young children find their place in the world, they interact with others to negotiate social order. Research shows that young children adopt strategies to empower themselves, influence others, and assert their autonomy. In this article, I examine ways in which 3- and 4-year-old children utilise spontaneous singing as an empowerment strategy. Audio data were collected through all-day recordings of 15 3-4-year-old children at home. Analysis using a sociological lens of musical agency revealed the children using singing as an agentic tool to empower themselves through exerting influence and resisting control. Although early childhood music education researchers have long been interested in musical interaction, themes of empowerment, resistance, influence, and control have not been thoroughly explored in relation to young children’s singing. Adopting a childhood studies perspective, this research contributes to a greater understanding of how young children negotiate everyday power relations and provides insight into their use of singing as a distinct mode of communication.

Introduction

In their social interactions, young children adopt strategies to empower themselves in relation to others. Research in early childhood education contexts shows young children engaging in complex rule negotiating processes (Bateman and Roberts, 2018; Cobb-Moore et al., 2009) and using strategies to influence others, gain control and assert autonomy (Dalli et al., 2023; Ebrahim, 2011; Singer, 2019). These include evading adult rules (Corsaro, 2005), adopting a range of leadership strategies (Lee et al., 2005; Mawson, 2011) and negotiating participation in group activities (Markström and Halldén, 2009). In this article I use data collected during a study exploring the spontaneous singing of 3-4-year-old children at home (Dean, 2021a) to examine how young children use singing as an empowerment strategy.

Spontaneous singing is singing that is initiated by the child. This can include invented or improvised songs, learnt or known songs, and songs that adapt existing lyrics and/or melodies. Young children spontaneously sing, hum, chant and engage in musical vocal play (Bjørkvold, 1989; Moog, 1976; Young, 2002, 2006). Spontaneous singing has been found to be most prevalent around the age of 3 (Forrester, 2010) and gradually becomes less frequent as children grow older (Knudsen, 2008). Singing is a significant mode of communication and expression for young children (Campbell, 2010; Custodero et al., 2016; Pitt, 2020). Parents and early childhood educators will be familiar with hearing children sing spontaneously as they play and go about their daily routines.

Researchers have been interested in spontaneous singing since the mid-20th century (Moog, 1976; Moorhead and Pond, 1942/1978; Sundin, 1960/1998). While much of the early research was rooted in developmental psychology and focussed on how spontaneous singing reflects musical and personal development (Moog, 1976), the field has expanded to embrace a range of different perspectives including sociological perspectives that examine the role of spontaneous singing and music-making in young children’s everyday lives (Barrett, 2009, 2016; Ilari, 2018; Knudsen, 2008).

Young children interacting through spontaneous singing

It is widely accepted that music is fundamentally social and has its roots in communication and social interaction (Cross and Morley, 2009; Small, 1998). Over the past two decades, there has been a proliferation of research exploring the musical communication that occurs between parents and their children. This includes musical communication between mothers and their infants (Malloch and Trevarthen, 2009; Papazachariou-Christoforou, 2025), and parents using singing as means of interacting with their toddlers and young children (Barrett, 2009; Custodero, 2006; Dou and Cirelli, 2025; Gluschankof, 2023; Sulkin and Brodsky, 2021; Young and Gillen, 2010). Large-scale studies show that parent-infant singing is widespread in the UK, North America, and New Zealand (Evans et al., 2022; Fancourt and Perkins, 2018; Yan et al., 2021). Recently, technological advances have enabled researchers to record family musical interactions at home (Dean, 2021a; Dosaiguas et al., 2021; Lerma-Arregocés and Pérez-Moreno, 2024). This research has highlighted the importance of singing in family life and how singing is used as part of care routines and play, and to communicate identity, belonging, family unity, and emotion.

Outside the home environment, children use spontaneous singing to communicate with their peers in early childhood education and community settings. For example, Rickert (2022) has recently shown how children in a preschool in the Netherlands use spontaneous singing in interactions with their peers to facilitate joint play; Custodero et al. (2016) observed communicative musical interactions among children and between children and adults and on the New York subway; and Pitt (2020) explored how singing supported communication between children and caregivers in a community music education setting.

Although music is considered to be communicative, the meanings conveyed through music are highly ambiguous. Cross and Morley (2009) argue that it is in this ambiguity that the communicative value of music lies. Because the intentions of the performer are not explicitly clear, the listener is able to attach their own meaning to music. While lyrics make songs less ambiguous than instrumental music, there is rarely an expectation that messages expressed through music will be taken at face value. This is important when considering how and why children communicate through singing.

Young children, agency, and power

Within a contemporary childhood studies perspective children’s agency is considered to be situated and relational (Greene and Nixon, 2020; Prout, 2005, 2011). That is, the extent of a child’s agency, or ability to act, is derived from and limited by specific social, cultural, and physical contexts (Tisdall and Punch, 2012). Child agency can therefore be conceptualised as being networked between both human and non-human entities and within social interaction (Oswell, 2012).

The relational nature of child agency means it is inextricably linked to power relations. According to Foucault, power is inherent in human relationships because, through relating to each other we seek to “direct the behaviour of another” (Fornet-betancourt et al., 1987: 122). In Foucault’s view, power relations exist between all people who are “free” and constantly shift according to context (Fornet-Betancourt et al., 1987). Power is therefore not something that some people have, and some people lack, rather all people who engage in social interaction are implicated in relationships of power. Power is considered to exist on an “everyday”, local, and diffused level.

Foucault’s concept of power relations as something we all engage in, together with the concept of relational agency (Esser et al., 2016; Oswell, 2012; Prout, 2005), allows us to consider young children, not as powerless and directed, but as agents who can influence and direct the behaviour of others. For Foucault, struggle and resistance are natural parts of power relations, on both macro and micro levels, and can have both positive and negative outcomes. In caring relationships between adults and young children, power is negotiated on an ongoing basis to allow for both adult and child to have their needs met. Although there is an inherent imbalance of power between adults and children, the interdependent nature of the relationship between parent and child means that both parties are susceptible to being influenced by the other (Goh and Kuczynski, 2009). Due to the complex interdependent relationships within families, children often have greater opportunity to exercise power and agency at home than in other contexts (Goh and Kuczynski, 2009; Greene and Nixon, 2020).

Young children’s empowerment strategies

Researchers have identified a range of strategies that young children use to influence others (Dalli et al., 2023; Ebrahim, 2011; Goh and Kuczynski, 2009; Greene and Nixon, 2020; McCabe and Farrell, 2021). From birth, behaviours such as the imitation of facial expressions encourage adults to interact with infants (Bortfeld and Gabouer, 2021). As they get older, children use their increasingly sophisticated social skills to influence their parents and other family members (Goh and Kuczynski, 2009).

Kuczynski and Kochanska (1990) found that children use negotiation strategies to avoid compliance with parental requests and that these become increasingly sophisticated between the ages of 1.5 and 5 years. In a study of five children, aged 5–10 years, living in multi-generational homes in China, Goh and Kuczynski (2009) found the children used strategies that were unique to each adult-child relationship to resist authority and influence and negotiate with their parents and grandparents. These strategies included evasion and delay, resistance, feigned compliance, and playing adults off against each other.

Young children achieve a sense of empowerment through resisting and evading rules and adult control (Canning, 2019; Corsaro, 2005; Ebrahim, 2011; Goh and Kuczynski, 2009; Srinivasan, 2019). Ebrahim (2011) observed 3-4-year-old children in two early childhood education settings in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The children used strategies of resistance, avoidance and ignoring, and collaboration to challenge the rules and test the boundaries of permissible behaviour. Conscious of the risks involved, the children drew on their knowledge of the routines and structures of their early childhood setting to resist the expected behavioural norms and create their own ways of participating. By ignoring teacher requests or remaining silent when questioned, children were able to resist control of their behaviour, and by ignoring their peers they were able to avoid sharing or having their play interrupted. Interestingly, one of the subversive strategies that Ebrahim observed was the children collaborating to improvise an action song with lyrics that they knew would not be sanctioned by the adults in the setting.

Young children also use humour as a means of empowerment (Cameron et al., 2008; Loizou, 2005). In an empirical study of six toddlers in a childcare setting, Loizou found that the children used humour to violate the expectations of their caregivers and make themselves feel superior. The children tested boundaries by smiling, laughing and looking at their caregiver whilst doing something they were not supposed to do. Similarly, Cameron et al. (2008) and Singer (2019) describe how children learn how to avoid reprimand by indicating, either verbally or non-verbally, that they were “joking”. Dalli et al. (2023) found that 3- and 4-year-old children in an early childhood education setting in Aotearoa New Zealand used humour to manage social relationships, including to mask uncertainty in relationships and to intentionally defuse or resolve conflict with peers. Avoidance of conflict also emerges as a theme in other studies, where researchers have noted children finding ways to act subversively, evade rules, and resist adult power without causing conflict or offence (Ebrahim, 2011; Srinivasan, 2019).

As Dalli et al. (2023) show, children use empowerment strategies in their interactions with both adults and other children. Research on young children’s leadership styles (Lee et al., 2005; Mawson, 2011) provides insight into how children in early childhood education settings seek to influence their peers. Lee et al. (2005) describes how 3-4-year-old children in the USA influence others through inventing creative play opportunities, nurturing younger children, using humour, and testing boundaries. Observing 3- and 4-year-old children in Aotearoa New Zealand, Mawson (2011) found young leaders used physical and relational assertiveness and/or aggression to influence their peers.

Empowerment, influence, coercion, negotiation, resistance, and control are ideas that are not often discussed in relation to musical interactions. In a rare example, Knudsen’s (2008) Foucauldian analysis of two video examples of 6- and 7-year-olds’ improvised singing provided evidence that children use singing to “empower themselves as agentic subjects” (p. 292). Knudsen’s interpretation of the children’s singing was inspired by the work of music sociologist, DeNora (2000) and demonstrated that power can be negotiated through spontaneous singing. Forrester (2010), observing his own 2.5-year-old daughter, noticed that singing could be used in a defiant manner and to indicate disagreement. More recently, Lim (2021) described how children in an early childhood setting in Singapore used improvised singing to tease and exert power over their peers. In this article, I build on these ideas to demonstrate how 3-4-year-old children make use of singing to negotiate power within their relationships at home.

This article seeks to highlight young children’s use of singing as an empowerment strategy. I present a series of vignettes drawn from data collected in a study of young children’s spontaneous singing at home and analysed through a lens of musical agency. By examining these examples in detail, I aim to expand on a theme that emerged from the larger study and provide evidence to show how children use singing to assert themselves, influence others, control interpersonal interaction, and resist adult authority. The underlying theoretical approach is sociological, influenced by a childhood studies perspective. This perspective considers the child to be relatively competent, active in constructing their own experience, and capable of influencing those around them (Corsaro, 2005; Greene and Nixon, 2020).

Research design

This article draws on empirical data collected for an ethnographically inspired study exploring how 3- and 4-year-old children use spontaneous singing in their everyday lives at home (Dean, 2021a). The 15 participants were white, middle-class children (seven boys, eight girls), aged between 3:0 and 4:10 years (average age 3:8) living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Aotearoa New Zealand. Participants were recruited through personal networks, word of mouth, a local preschool (UAE) and a local playgroup (NZ) whilst the researcher was resident in the UAE and then in Aotearoa New Zealand. The participants in the UAE were all the children of English-speaking expats living temporarily in the UAE. Comparisons were not drawn between children in the two locations, as that was outside the scope of the study. Care was taken to recruit children from as similar a demographic as possible in New Zealand to those in the UAE so as not to introduce strong cultural differences. The children were all English-speaking Westerners.

Research on spontaneous singing at home (Dean, 2021b; Koops, 2012) and in the community (Custodero et al., 2016) has shown that the presence, and especially the attention, of adults can close down spontaneous singing. Therefore, non-participant data was collected through continuous audio recordings using the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) Digital Language Processor (DLP). For the recording, children wore a lightweight research vest with the DLP recording device placed in a pocket on the child’s chest. The DLP was operated by the parent, who determined the length of the recording sessions. The children were recorded continuously during their normal everyday routines in and around their homes. The number and time of recordings varied according to what was practical for the family. The 15 families made between 2 and 7 recordings each, with total recording times for each child ranging from 4 to 24 hours (average 12 hours).

In addition to the audio recordings, semi-structured interviews were carried out with a parent, which was the mother in every case. During these interviews I collected information relating to the child’s daily routines, the musical background of the family, musical practices in the home, parental attitudes to music, and the parents’ perception of the child’s singing at home. In some instances, I returned to the parents during data analysis to clarify my understanding of the audio data. However, this was not always possible.

Ethical clearance was received for this study from the University of Exeter, where I was based for my doctoral study, and names have been changed to maintain confidentiality. Written informed consent was given by parents. The concept of ongoing assent to participate was discussed with parents and they were asked to gain their child’s assent, honour their child’s wish to participate or not, and avoid using coercion. On several occasions it became clear when listening to the recording that a child did not wish to participate. In these cases, the recording was discarded.

To prepare for analysis, episodes of spontaneous singing were manually located within the audio files. For the purposes of the study, I defined spontaneous singing as any vocal behaviour that was organised rhythmically or melodically and was initiated by the child. This included humming, rhythmic chanting, singing on syllables or nonsense words, singing recognisable lyrics, and vocal play, but excluded single utterances with pitch variation (such as a sigh with descending pitch). The episodes of spontaneous singing were coded using a combination of deductive and inductive codes and were organised into themes using a process of thematic analysis. The nature of the children’s spontaneous singing meant the recordings were not able to be accurately transcribed using Western stave notation. Therefore, data were analysed directly from the audio recordings.

Data for this article data was interpreted through a sociological lens of musical agency based on the work of Karlsen (2011). The concept of musical agency differs according to the wider theoretical framework within which it is applied. In music education and music psychology, musical agency usually refers to a person’s capacity to act in musical ways (Wiggins, 2015). In music sociology, DeNora (2000) considered musical agency to be the capacity to use music as a tool of agency. Inspired largely by DeNora’s work, Karlsen (2011) developed a lens of musical agency for use in music education that defines musical agency as “the capacity for action in relation to music or in a music-related setting” (p. 110). For the purposes of my research on 3- and 4-year-olds spontaneous singing, I define musical agency as the capacity to act in or through music. This definition allows for the use of singing to address both musical goals (acting in music) and non-music goals (acting through music).

Evidence

The following vignettes provide evidence of children using spontaneous singing to empower themselves within their relationships at home. Eleven of the 15 children in the study used singing to influence others, and/or to resist the influence of others. The examples given here have been chosen from the data set to best illustrate these uses of singing.

Singing to influence: Facilitating cooperative play

Some of the children used spontaneous singing during joint play to influence the behaviour of their play partner. In the two examples below, the research participants are playing with younger siblings.

Example 1

Helena (3) is playing with her younger sister, Penny, and wants Penny to pretend to go to sleep. She firmly says, “Sleep now please!” and immediately sings, “Close your eyes, close your eyes, close your eyes.”

Example 2

Maddy (4 years, 5 months) and her younger brother, Paul, are playing a rough game with toys that are roaring and stamping and trying to eat each other. Maddy suddenly starts singing in a high-pitched, gentle voice, “Flutter, flutter, flutter.” She ignores her brother’s roars and attempts to engage her, and continues to sing, “Flutter, flutter, flutter” over and over again. Gradually, Paul’s play changes. His voice becomes higher and softer, until he says quietly, “I’m a little baby one.” Finally, Maddy stops singing, starts speaking with him in a normal voice, and they move on to a new game.

Everyday social interactions involve ongoing negotiation and positioning (Fornet-betancourt et al., 1987). These examples show Helena and Maddy influencing, or attempting to influence, the behaviour of their siblings through singing. Helena’s sister is only 1 year old and no doubt too young to make a satisfactory pretend play partner. Although Helena tells Penny to “Sleep now, please!”, she does not follow this up with further directives. Instead, she sings a lullaby, seemingly of her own devising. It is unclear whether Penny actually closes her eyes, but notably, Helena does not repeat her request and continues to play happily with her sister.

Maddy’s approach is a lot more indirect. When she wants to influence her brother’s play behaviour, Maddy does not speak at all. She uses singing to diffuse Paul’s rough play, exerting a gentle influence and steering the play in a direction that suits her. Through her singing, she demonstrates to Paul the tone and feeling of how she wants to play. Maddy is persistent and continues singing until Paul’s vocalising has undergone a complete change, from rough roaring to a tiny, high-pitched, “baby” voice. Only then is she satisfied with the change in mood and prepared to move on.

Both of these children used singing to manipulate their sibling’s behaviour in a way that was non-confrontational. By singing, like the children who used humour (Dalli et al., 2023; Loizou, 2005) or other leadership strategies (Lee et al., 2005), Helena and Maddy were both able to achieve the desired outcome whilst avoiding conflict with their sibling.

Singing to influence: Control

Three-year-old Casey made frequent use of singing as a tool of resistance and to control interactions. The youngest of three sisters in an ex-pat family, Casey was a very sociable and outgoing child who knew her own mind. In the recorded data, Casey most often sang spontaneously during interactions with others, and it was clear that she enjoyed having an audience. The two examples below were recorded 11 days apart.

Example 3

Casey is being cared for by Ushma, the family maid. They are singing and playing a peek-a-boo game together. After a brief pause, Casey starts singing “Aisha, Aisha.” Ushma tries to join in, but Casey firmly says, “No, I’m trying to sing.” She starts singing again and once again, Ushma tries to join in. Casey stops singing and says firmly, “No! I said stop singing!”

Example 4

Eleven days later, Casey and Ushma are sitting together while Casey has a snack. Casey counts to nine triumphantly and then starts to sing, “One, two, three, four, five, once I caught a fish alive, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, then I let it go again.” Ushma begins to sing along. Casey pauses, then continues singing, but this time using improvised lyrics. She sings, “Why do. . . anybody picks the thumb, anybody it’s the number,” followed by nonsense lyrics. Ushma says, “No, no, sing nicely.” Casey says, “Okay,” but her singing gets sillier.

Example three shows Casey adopting a solo performer identity. She clearly does not want Ushma to join in with her singing. When Casey says, “No, I’m trying to sing,” she means she is trying to sing alone. When this is unsuccessful and Ushma continues singing, Casey explicitly tells her to stop singing.

In example four, we see Casey develop a new strategy to control Ushma’s participation and maintain her role as solo performer. Instead of telling Ushma to stop singing, Casey changes the lyrics, improvising new words to the tune they both know. This makes it impossible for Ushma to join in, as there is no way she can know the words to sing. This strategy enables Casey to continue her singing without interrupting her flow and, importantly, to maintain her control of the song and the performing context. Not only is this strategy a lot more subtle than telling Ushma, “No!,” it also enables Casey to achieve the outcome she desires in a non-confrontational way. Knudsen (2008) discusses how two 6-year-old boys empower themselves through singing loudly and “taking command of the aural space” (p. 291). Similarly, Casey may have felt empowered by dominating the aural space. Her control of the song, the interaction, and the aural space may reflect a desire to dominate Ushma.

Singing as resistance: Defiance

Several children in the study used singing as a means of resistance. This included overt defiance, ignoring and non-compliance.

Returning to Casey, in example 5 we see her using singing in a defiant manner:

Example 5

Casey is playing with playdough alongside her sister, Amy, who is using clay. They play quietly at first, then Casey starts speaking rhythmically, “Gu gu gee”, continuing in a silly voice. She begins singing to the tune of Wheels on the Bus with nonsense lyrics, “Gaa gaa gee gurr. . .” She repeats this phrase over and over and her voice becomes growly and aggressive. It becomes obvious that this growly singing has accompanied some boisterous play, as Amy complains to their mother that Casey has broken her creation. Their mother reprimands Casey and attempts to remedy the situation. Casey completely ignores both her mother and her sister and continues singing, but in a quieter and more introverted way.

Once again, Casey uses her singing voice to make her presence felt, vying with her sister for her mother’s attention. However, once she has caused trouble and her mother becomes involved, there is an obvious change in the way she sings. By singing quietly, Casey indicates in a non-confrontational way that she is not listening to her mother and that she is unconcerned by her mother’s reprimand and her sister’s complaints. Using singing to ignore her mother and sister is a stronger, more overt strategy than ignoring in silence. It empowers Casey by allowing her to have the final say. The strategy is very effective, as not only does Casey avoid any consequence, her refusal to acknowledge wrongdoing also means she maintains her dignity. Once her mother and sister lose interest and cease to be annoyed, Casey launches into a new boisterous song with silly improvised lyrics.

Maisie (4 years, 2 months) made use of singing in a similar way. Like Casey, Maisie was an outgoing child who frequently employed singing within social interactions.

Example 6

Maisie and her younger sister are playing together, wearing their parents’ shoes. They show their father, who is unimpressed and tells them to put all the shoes away. Maisie says, “Okay,” then sings an improvised song: “Put-ty back, put shoe back, doo dee day, doo dee day, put shoe back.” She continues, changing the vowel sounds in some of the words until it becomes nonsense. Maisie’s singing is cheeky and defiant.

Although Maisie obeys her father, her singing conveys an air of nonchalance that refuses to acknowledge her father’s annoyance. Her silly singing gives the impression that she has control and allows her to maintain her dignity while actually accepting her father’s authority. Like Casey, Maisie appears to use singing to save face and retain a sense of power.

Defiance could also be heard in the ways the children used singing to say something that would not be acceptable if spoken, thus defying adult rules about acceptable behaviour. For example, when Kyle (4 years) was climbing somewhere he shouldn’t be and his nanny told him to come down, he defiantly sang, “You gonna stand there and watch me!”. It is likely that this would be an unacceptable response if spoken, but Karl’s nanny like other adults in the study, did not respond to sung retorts or cheekiness. This reflects Ebrahim’s observation (2011) that children were able to improvise a song with unacceptable lyrics without their teachers reacting.

As discussed earlier, power relations are negotiated and re-negotiated on an on-going basis (Fornet-Betancourt et al., 1987) and within families, relationships are complex and interdependent (Goh and Kuczynski, 2009). Both Casey and Kyle were living in households that included live-in domestic staff. This adds an additional layer of complexity to power relations as domestic staff have caring responsibility but lack the authority and the close interdependent relationship of a parent. Casey and Kyle both used their singing to resist the authority of their nannies in ways that took advantage of the complex and sometimes ambiguous hierarchical relationship between children and domestic employees. However, their behaviour was not markedly different to how they behaved towards their mothers, or how other children in the study tested the authority of their parents.

Singing as resistance: Non-compliance

Another form of resistance is non-compliance. The children used singing to avoid complying with their parent’s wishes. Zoe can be heard doing this in the example below.

Example 7

Zoe and her mother, Angie, are playing a game that Angie tells me Zoe spontaneously invented a few days earlier. They have a picture book and take turns improvising a song about each picture. Today the game is initiated by Angie, but Zoe seems willing to participate. Zoe begins by loudly singing nonsense syllables to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Angie asks, “Oh, what’s that one called?” Her tone suggests she does not consider Zoe’s response to be a proper song. Zoe makes up a nonsense name and Angie responds, “No, in real words.” Zoe repeats her nonsense talk. Angie has a turn, singing an improvised song about a ball. On Zoe’s turn, she continues to sing nonsense syllables rather than words. The game continues until Angie gives up.

Throughout this episode, it is clear that Zoe wishes to participate on her own terms and is resisting her mother’s control of the game. Musical play, and play in general, can be inhibited when adults take control (Koops, 2012; McCabe and Farrell, 2021) and the interaction that was intended as a time of shared musical play, quickly became a battle of wills. However, it is notable that Zoe chooses to sing subversively rather than refuse to participate. Subversive singing allows Zoe to extend the quality time she his spending with her mother’s full attention, whilst giving a clear message that she does not want to follow her mother’s direction.

Conclusion

The examples presented here make visible some of the ways the children used spontaneous singing as an empowerment strategy to negotiate their relationships and their place in the world. I propose that children are able to utilise singing in these ways because they understand singing as a distinct mode of communication. Children’s social and cultural knowledge of how singing is received and interpreted allows them to use singing as a tool of agency in their social interactions.

The evidence suggests that the children chose singing as a tool for negotiating power because it allowed them to influence and resist without coming into conflict with siblings or adults. This reflects prior research that shows that children use strategies that enable them to act subversively, evade rules and resist adult power without causing conflict or offence (Ebrahim, 2011; Srinivasan, 2019). Avoiding conflict is important for children, who are inherently less powerful than adults. The ambiguous nature of singing (Cross and Morley, 2009) afforded the children the ability to assert themselves and challenge adult authority in subtle ways that went unnoticed or were ignored by adults and therefore did not result in negative consequences. The adults in the study did not seem to place the same significance on singing as they might on speech and this allowed the children to use singing to conceal non-compliance and mask behaviour that may not otherwise be acceptable.

There are interesting parallels between the ways in which children in this study use singing and the ways other researchers have observed young children using humour (Cameron et al., 2008; Dalli et al., 2023; Loizou, 2005). Like singing, humour carries ambiguity and is not interpreted in the same way as more direct forms of communication. As such, both singing and humour afford children the opportunity to act outside accepted norms of behaviour.

Themes of power, control, influence and resistance are becoming increasingly common in early childhood education literature. However, with the exception of Knudsen’s (2008) examination of 6-7-year-olds’ communication of power through singing, the role of singing as a strategy for empowerment has largely been overlooked. This may be due to early childhood researchers focussing on other modes of communication or that spontaneous singing is considered a less important means of communication and therefore goes relatively unnoticed in early childhood settings. Attending to the many different ways young children communicate supports the development of responsive caring and pedagogical relationships.

The participants in the study were English-speaking children from broadly similar Western cultural contexts who were interacting with siblings and adults in their homes. Further research is needed to investigate how children use singing as an empowerment strategy in early childhood education settings, and how singing is used between children in multi-ethnic, multi-lingual early childhood education settings where cultural understandings may differ.

This research demonstrates that listening carefully to young children’s spontaneous singing can help us understand a lot more about children than their musical knowledge. It can also reveal what children know and understand about their social world and the multimodal tools they use to act and interact in it. This is important for early childhood teachers. Being able to recognise singing as a multimodal communication strategy, enables teachers to respond appropriately to support young children in their social and language development.

In addition, this research shows how important it is that singing is included as an everyday part of early childhood education. Children’s ability to use singing as a tool of communication is dependent on having regular singing experiences. In early childhood education settings, this not only means singing in more formal group situations, but also teachers using spontaneous singing in their interactions with children. Being able to draw on spontaneous singing as a communication strategy supports children to navigate complex social interactions and negotiate their place in the world.