7 Unhealthy Vocal Habits to Watch Out For In Children’s Voices

Be Careful, poor and unhealthy vocal habits are everywhere. Use this list of 7 to identify ones that might be happening in your vocal studio. Voice Teachers unite!

Good Voice Teachers Know
A short wile ago I wrote a blog entitled 6 and Taking Voice Lessons. I’d like to follow up by sharing the some great warning signs that Ms Sally Rose Bates (that 6 year-old voice teacher) recently shared. These are unhealthy vocal habits to watch out for in younger voice lessons and even if you’re looking for them, they can sneak up so be careful!

7 Unhealthy Vocal Habits

  1. Heavy belting, which means bringing the chest voice higher than is healthy.
  2. High larynx singing, which is the result of keeping the child-like sound for too long when singing.  The voice should be allowed to drop and fill out in tone.  This particularly happens between 13 and 15 for young girls and usually later for boys.
  3. Forward thrusting jaw in an attempt to ‘belt it out,’ where the jaw may even be locking in some cases if it is that tense.
  4. Singing too loudly or singing with too much breath pressure in tonal production, as well as only learning loud pushed singing.
  5. Imitating pop or rock singers and/or idols that are adults, which they may listen to all the time.
  6. Forcing an adult sound by using the depression of the larynx with the tongue-root and/or hyper-extension of the laryngeal muscles during vocal production.
  7. General singing with mouth vowels without enough open pharyngeal (throat) space, which protects the vocal folds.

Helping Teacher and Students

If you’re a Voice teacher and see some of these habits happening, you know what to do. If you’re a parent and feel this might be going on, please call us immediately, we can help!

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