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This qualifies as parenting lesson number 14,356. As if I could keep count of the lessons I’ve learned as a parent so far….
Our 13-year-old got an MP3 player last Christmas; our 11-year-old has an old one of her dad’s. I’ve downloaded every song (classical, Sound of Music, or old Disney mostly) or audiobook (lots of Adventures in Odyssey!) they’ve purchased, so I know exactly what’s on there.
Yesterday one of the girls bought a few songs. There was one I hadn’t heard before; it was from a more recent Disney movie, but I assumed it was okay.
After I downloaded it onto her and her sister’s MP3 players, I decided to listen to it. I realized I wasn’t crazy about the actual music and was confident that a few of the lyrics weren’t what I wanted going into my daughters’ minds on a regular basis (nothing morally objectionable, but more of an attitude thing).
Time to backtrack.
I pulled up the words to the song on my laptop and called the girls in so we could read through them together. Hopefully it was a teachable moment; I won’t be monitoring their music choices this way when they’re 18, so I tried to explain my objections in a way they could understand.
We deleted it from their devices, I bought them another song (since my daughter had used her own money to purchase it), and we moved on.
But parenting lesson number 14,356 for me is: never download a song to my child’s MP3 player that I haven’t listened to myself.
And I’m confident that lesson number 14,357 is just moments away.
Have you ever allowed your child to have or do something and later had to change your mind?
We had this issue with watching a Disney TV show, actually. It was Disney, so I thought it was probably OK; and Will had gone to our church sleep-away camp with one of the actors who starred in it, so there was that positive connection… But when I watched an episode with them later, I had to backtrack, too. It was the attitudes portrayed that bothered me so much; and the kids don't have time to watch much TV, anyway, so I'd rather it be better stuff we all enjoy. (Yay, Food Network! :-D)
Yes – I think that's such an important part of it – there's better stuff we can find for them to listen to/watch that will have a positive impact and match with our personal family values.
Hope y'all have a great weekend!!
Great lesson! My kids are still five and under but sometimes when we're listening to songs on the radio and I change the song because I don't like the words, the attitude etc, my five year old objects because hey, he liked that beat. So I try to explain why I changed it and how we need to decipher between uplifting music and not appropriate music. Sometimes I just want them to stay little forever. . .
Hi this is Stephenie Moulson Campbell from Gill Grove a long time ago. I have recently come across your blog and have so enjoyed it and wanted to let you know!! Thanks for posting!!
So good to hear from you, Stephenie!! Thank you for your kind words. Hope you and your family are doing well!
Oh, yes! Recently, we were about to turn on an episode of Cake Boss, but we realized that it had zombies in it and other inappropriate stuff. So we moved on to the next one, but one of my children wasn't happy about it. But that's one of our jobs as parents, isn't it? To protect our children.
Yes Tracey we are well.Thanks for asking! I will keep reading your post.