Families often use music as a way to teach children how to behave according to the precepts of society. Beginning in infancy, musicality exists at the core of family interactions and forms the basis for social and emotional communication throughout the life span. For many families, musical parenting practices permeate daily life, facilitating routines and providing social interaction necessary for healthy attachment. Because of its social nature, music also may lie at the heart of family coherence, which is integral to a healthy upbringing and critical for mitigating the stress inherent in transitions. As infants develop through preschool years, the ways in which families use music change, moving from intersubjective, emotional regulation and facilitation of transitions through daily routines to educational strategies. As children get ready to transition from preschool into their formal schooling years, expectations move from learning in social interaction to a focus on the academic. In addition to family use of music, musical exploration and expression are abundant in the daily lives of children and are the central elements of children's play. Children create unpracticed, self-generated musical expressions, which occur naturally to them. Considering the core role that music plays in children's lives, this article discusses how music functions in significant transitions and how the timing and scheduling of adult-structured school settings might affect children's spontaneous music making, which is implicated in healthy development. It also highlights some aspects of caring for children that may benefit from closer attention to how time and transition work as a natural, self-regulatory process, especially within the highly structured world of formal schooling.