Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Monitoring Rock Music

Not knowing what your religious beliefs are, I hesitate to mention that the Christian Rock music genre has a very large selection of music that has the beats that my 12 year old loves along with lyrics that are not promoting sex and violence.

That said, DS loves to listen to any and all music from Gregorian chants, folk music and classical to what you hear on today's pop music radio stations. Country, Jazz, Classic Rock (Anyone else find it odd that the 80's music is now in this catagory?). I mean he loves everything. So far our attitude has been to make sure he asks about lyrics he doesn't understand. When we hear some of them, we ask him what he thinks the song means. This has been pretty good for keeping the lines of communication open. We do tell him sometimes that the lyrics are not appropriate to his age and that there are adult themes that we prefer him not to worry about right now. Usually, then he changes the radio station when those songs come on.

But, on the positive side, knowing the current music scene does give him some social confidence at school.

Good luck! We are just starting down the Teenage path with DS. It is going to be a rough road...

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/music-reviews
This is the site I recommend to patrons.

thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll come back to this again for tips.

If I can find a few CDs that DS10 can get into he will be content. He has basically listened to 2 kids bop CDs last year almost daily. He like singing to them. I didn't know common sense had music. Thank you that will be a big help.

"Eagles, many of they broke up-Glenn Fry, Joe Walsh, Don Henley all of them went on as solo artists. Some of them say some things but I love their music. Even George Straight has some explicit lyrics "they call me the fireman", but it's in everything. Some things are about the lyrics and some things are about the music."
-my hubby

The site below has been helpful for us. It gives in-depth details on the content in movies, DVD's, music, etc. Plugged In Online

My kids have both hit the age where they are listening to the radio, including a lot of lyrics that I hate. My biggest misgivings have to do with the way in which women are referred to and the way in which women refer to themselves in modern music.

I laughed as I read several of the comments on this thread--I rented Grease for DD's birthday party last year (same age I was when it came out) and had a definite...."huh." moment. DH is a huge Jimmy Buffett fan and we would frequently include his music when we would burn CDs for car trips. Now that we are loading onto iPOD we are more likely to have whole albums. Wish I hadn't forgotten about the song "Why Don't We Get Drunk...."

Funniest experience we ever had with music: Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue" which ends with a string of bleeps on our CD. The song was apparently written by Shel Silverstein. I checked out a Shel Silverstein CD from the children's section of the library a few years back for my daughter. Later that evening she came running out and said, "Mom! Now I know what all the bleeping was in a Boy Named Sue". No bleeping in the Shel Silverstein version.... Oops.

Mr W can sing anything after he hears it once. And he has phenomenal hearing and can tune in to one thing to the exclusion of everything else.

This makes things very interesting.

He was singing something with simulated flatulence noises added in. I asked him where he heard it and he said at the mall. After a few more questions, I narrowed it down to a rap song.

LOL

He picked up another song about flatulence on the playground at school from a boy who just graduated from Kindergarten - or he made it up. Sometimes I can't tell. I had to tell him not to sing that one out loud.


As his known list of words expands and he no longer mouths words from his aural memory, I suspect we'll get some tricky questions.

I had to come out of hidding for this post...I just love Queen.

I let the kids listen to many different artists, like Queen, but if I start hearing content coming across that I don't like I make them change the channel on the radio. Then we have a discussion about listening to the words, such as the phrase "brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack" (just hate that song) and what that means, what Jack is, why kids their age shouldn't be singing it and so on.

I try and show them to not just blindly listen and repeat like others at school, but listen and pick apart music. Also to form ideas for themselves instead of blindly following others in school or in popular media. Then they know what I expect of them no matter what kind of stuff they come across.

DH and I don't listen to much current music (I'm stuck in the early 90s), but I have to admit I'm not too fussed about what dd listens to with the exception of some of the more chauvinistic offerings doing the rounds. She's not allow to watch music videos (well, when I say not allowed - she doesn't know they exist yet, but once she does, I wont be letting her watch them for some time yet).

With regard to swearing and so on - DH and I both swear like troopers, despite our best efforts not to at home. Dd's favorite songs all contain swear words, yet she's never sworn in her life (or not in my presence anyway and I've had no reports of it elsewhere). I just don't think they hold any power in our household and dd is very sensitive to the nuance of responding appropriately in different situations, so I think she'd be unlikely to swear inappropriately out in the world either. I'm not suggesting that that would work for every family, but so much good music would have to be cut out of our play lists if we censored based on swearing! Like Adrienne, we'll discuss the lyrics where we think its important - or in some case we just don't discuss them at all because it's a fun song that without an explanation wont do any harm (thinking of the Grease references - the lyrics are meaningless when you're that age, without context).

Interestingly there are reports of gifted kids showing a preference for heavy metal music... here's one http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...etal-a-comfort-for-the-bright-child.html

Gosh I am glad I am not alone in this. DH and I both swear a lot more than we intend to and yet have done quite well at teaching our children not to, in part because it doesn't' get much reaction from us. Each of our older children have experimented extremely briefly as toddlers and moved on - to chiding us gently when we do.

My concerns with lyrics are much more about meaning, or air-headed lack there of, than profanity.