Music and kids

[Baron1710]

How do regulate the music your teens listen to? What criteria do you use to give your kids guidelines as to what is and is not acceptable? I have a 10 year old and a 14 year old and we have been dealing with what we will and will not allow them to listen to.

[deltaguitar]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

How do regulate the music your teens listen to? What criteria do you use to give your kids guidelines as to what is and is not acceptable? I have a 10 year old and a 14 year old and we have been dealing with what we will and will not allow them to listen to.

Well, my children are 3 and 7 months so I don't have to think about this right now.

[Digging4Truth]

We never did set do's & don'ts with our kids.

We would use different times when we might hear a song come on that would spark good discussion. We taught them to listen to the lyrics and what the song says and to make decisions from the lyrics whether this is something that one would want to feed their mind on.

We don't teach them "this music is good"... "this music is evil"

We teach them to be alert to what they are feeding their minds with and to carefully weigh what they listen to.

My children listen to 95+% Christian music.

The only music they listen to outside of Christian music is the odd fad song that they hear and these are generally short lived. They find the song funny, interesting, heart warming etc. They listen to it. They enjoy it. And... when the day is done they are, again, feeding their minds on songs with a message that is about God.

My children have the freedom to choose and the teaching to do so wisely.

But... one disclaimer...

This type of approach is not something you can start when they are 16 and wanting to listen to different types of music. This is something you start at a very early age and build in their way of thinking as they get older.

You don't tell someone at the last second that they need to take a left turn when they are driving.

By the same token... you don't begin these types of conditioning when the child is in the midst of the struggle. At this point you are now right at the turn and to require some drastic change now will be disastrous.

[Baron1710]

Originally Posted by Digging4Truth

We never did set do's & don'ts with our kids.

We would use different times when we might hear a song come on that would spark good discussion. We taught them to listen to the lyrics and what the song says and to make decisions from the lyrics whether this is something that one would want to feed their mind on.

We don't teach them "this music is good"... "this music is evil"

We teach them to be alert to what they are feeding their minds with and to carefully weigh what they listen to.

My children listen to 95+% Christian music.

The only music they listen to outside of Christian music is the odd fad song that they hear and these are generally short lived. They find the song funny, interesting, heart warming etc. They listen to it. They enjoy it. And... when the day is done they are, again, feeding their minds on songs with a message that is about God.

My children have the freedom to choose and the teaching to do so wisely.

I have had to say "no" to one of the recent fad songs "soldja boy" based on the lyrics not the music itself.

[deltaguitar]

Last year some of our youth went to the Mississippi District UPC youth camp. They came back telling us that there were ministers playing music backwards to show them that "rap" music was bad. I could not believe it. They tried this same stuff back in the late seventies and eighties that the music had hidden messages. I remember a certain evangelist came to our church and told us all of this and I went home and played all our Christian records backwards. I found tons of messages in them.

I mean like we actually need to listen to rap music backwards to see if it is really bad or not. Just listen to it forwards and it is bad enough.

[Digging4Truth]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

I have had to say "no" to one of the recent fad songs "soldja boy" based on the lyrics not the music itself.

I'm not sure about those lyrics... I haven't run across that song in dealing with my children.

But I would also suggest that you work with less of a scenario of "no" and more of a situation where you sit down with them and look at the lyrics together and discuss with them what the lyrics say.

More often than you might imagine they will clearly see and agree with you that these aren't good words to feed your mind on. Especially when a parent has sat down with them and spoken to them person to person (as if they had an opinion that mattered).

When they see the lyrics right in front of them with you there then the knee jerk reactionary responses are less likely and reasonable dialog has a better chance of happening.

This not only makes them feel that you are speaking TO them rather than AT them but it also begins to teach them good procedures for picking out songs for themselves. As a parent it is our goal to work ourselves out of a job.

Also... please note the disclaimer that I added to my original post.

[Digging4Truth]

Originally Posted by deltaguitar

Last year some of our youth went to the Mississippi District UPC youth camp. They came back telling us that there were ministers playing music backwards to show them that "rap" music was bad. I could not believe it. They tried this same stuff back in the late seventies and eighties that the music had hidden messages. I remember a certain evangelist came to our church and told us all of this and I went home and played all our Christian records backwards. I found tons of messages in them.

I mean like we actually need to listen to rap music backwards to see if it is really bad or not. Just listen to it forwards and it is bad enough.

LOL... an old trick revisited. LOL

I find that reason works much better than reasons.

[deltaguitar]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

I have had to say "no" to one of the recent fad songs "soldja boy" based on the lyrics not the music itself.

Let them see this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5cWH...eature=related

[MrsMcD]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

I have had to say "no" to one of the recent fad songs "soldja boy" based on the lyrics not the music itself.

We said no also but our 11 year old son listens to it with his friends on their ipods. It is the hit song where we live. I had to explain to my son what it was saying.

[Digging4Truth]

Originally Posted by deltaguitar

Let them see this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5cWH...eature=related

Is this the song you had to say no to?