Yes I do admit I am "one of those parents" who regulate what the kids hear from the entertainment world. I do not think I want my six year old walking around singing lyrics that speak of activities not meant for young children. I will not post lyrics but I urge you to really listen to the words next time a hit song starts your toe tapping.
As an adult I can filter what I am hearing. I can understand what the words mean and filter it or turn it off. I like a lot of songs that do speak of these types of activities but I am 38 and have four children so you can guess I know what that is all about.
Children have no idea what some of these songs are telling stories about. Most of us start off our child's early years with songs and even if you have never sang your child a song {which I doubt...ABC....} you can bet when they enter school or have participated with any type of preschool group a song was used for teaching.
So why would a song on the radio be viewed any differently by the child?
Okay bare with me here, I am not stating that EVERY song is used as teaching but I am trying to point out the mixed signals we are giving our kids.
Everyone is quick to talk about teen violence, bullying, teen pregnancy {which is ridiculously high where I live}. Why are we not realizing that it matters what we feed our children's brains, whether through music or visually with television?
We do this on so many other levels, books...would we let our child, especially our preteen child, look through a book that was telling the story visually of these lyrics? Is this what we want our child to think LOVE is? Grinding bodies and whiskey bottles.
Why do many parents not like kids hearing a swear word but are okay with them listening to such things in music? I know right now on the top 40 charts the word "hoe" is used in the title of a song but some parents think "oh they have no idea what that means, they are too young"...THAT IS MY POINT! Then they goto school and call another kid a "HOE". Then what happens? How do we erase that? I know this by personal experience too...it was my first time in the Principal's office.
It is the message in the music we need to be careful of. I am a parent that believes kids do need to learn about the world around us but at appropriate times. These small human beings are developing, their brains are developing, they do not process things like adults. Their is a time {and I am entering that now} that we will have a chat with our kids about sex, drugs, alcohol, bullying, love and many other things that we the parents are responsible for teaching them.
Young children learning lyrics speaking of sex, drinking and drugs or even money and materialistic things is NOT helping them become a well rounded responsible adult. Isn't that what we strive for as parents? To raise children to grow up to be something in this awful, scary, chaotic, selfish world?
I did not grow up with any kinds of filters. I KNOW exactly what this did to me. I do not want that for my kids.
Kids are kids and should be taking part in activities for kids. Children should not have any idea what sex is until they are of an age they can understand what sex is for and that is up to each parent to decide what is best for their family. If you think your five year old should be repeating songs in their kindergarten class with lyrics speaking of grinding bodies and bottles of whiskey then I guess you have decided that your five year old is ready to understand.
I do not expect everyone to agree with me BUT....I am a little tired of hearing parents complain about things happening to their children or bullying or the many other things that DO happen when kids hang out without much parental supervision.
My role as a parent is to teach my children what is GOOD in this world. What doing GOOD is. That does NOT mean I keep them totally away from the BAD but instead include the BAD when they are ready to understand WHY it is BAD. Why it does not contribute to the world in a positive way.
We need to step up parents. We need to realize that our children need our guidance. They need to be taught how to use manners, help others, and take care of themselves along with many other things they can do to become a positive contribution to society.
Some may thing I am over the top with this but please realize that children's brains are like sponges. We see them act out superheroes on the playground.....what are the kids acting out that are seeing "other" things on TV.
Just think about it.
4 comments:
I totally agree. I think a lot of parents put the blame elsewhere and maybe they should think about the things they are doing.
Speaking of radio, it's not just the songs one has to prepared to filter...the ads on both radio stations are disgusting! The one I hate the most is around Christmas when they talk about "What's in Santa's sac?" and it goes on and on. Once I started paying attention to the amount of sexual innuendos in the radio commercials, I was shocked to find out how many local businesses think it's fine to use the "Sex sells" attitude.
Great post, Bonnie!
agree, agree, agree, with all of this, and the comments too!! It is a particular pet peeve of mine that there are terrible commercials on during programs that are meant for children or families. One example was watching a Disney movie on the CBC channel, and there was a promo for Dragon's Den where women were parading around in G strings with crude words printed on them and the hosts and the person speaking were acting in an almost lewd manner. Common people, this is a show that is meant for kids, why are things like that aired now?? Just one example of many. I am glad for our PVR. There are many shows that my children are only able to enjoy because they watch them on condition they fast forward commercials. "Mythbusters" is a show my kids love for the science and the experiments, but I hate the commercials that air during it's evening broadcast time. I can't even listen to the radio anymore, even as an adult I just can't stomach the lyrics. For older kids, I heard this story where the dad made a son sit face to face with his mom and read her the lyrics of a song he claimed "wasnt that bad". Suddenly, the words seemed horrible. I think that's a good idea!! For myself, I set the bar at what I read, listen to or watch with this in mind: As Christians, the Holy Spirit lives within our hearts and therefor is always with us. Do you think He wants to watch that with you? Would you be embarrassed to watch this with Jesus?
sorry for the super long comment... I'm just so passionate about this issue!
Well-said, Bonnie, and I completely agree too (and with the comments!). I also realize the importance of teaching them to make the right choices and to try to teach them about filtering now b/c there are some places (the BUS...), I can't turn the radio off for them. When I heard my kids singing a popular song, I was blown away, wondering where they heard it, and realized it was on the radio during their bus ride...ugh. Great post. :)
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