A couple of months ago we chose to remove the radio from our youngest son’s room. He stumbled upon a less-than-family-friendly radio station and started writing the lyrics of the songs to share with his friends. He loves his music and asked repeatedly to have his radio returned, but
GeekMom and I struggled with how to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Then it came to us
– an MP3 player (without an FM tuner…).
Maybe we’re just slow on the uptake (or maybe we’ve found a decent parent-hack), but we realized that with a small 512mb MP3 player (presently costing about $25) and a $20 pair of plug-in computer speakers, he could have his (now) PRM-controlled music. Since each song comes with the
GeekDad or GeekMom seal of approval before we load it on his MP3
player, he can share those lyrics with his friends if he wants.
He’s happy. We’re happy. No embarrassing lyrics to try to explain before he’s had THE
talk.
It worked so well for him that our youngest bought an MP3 player with birthday money –
she’s happy to bop around with ear-buds if she’s not plugging into the speakers in her room or her brother’s room. Every couple weeks we can change out the songs or maybe get a couple new ones.
This is what has worked for our younger children. Some kids will be perfectly content to leave the radio tuned to the station that Mom or Dad put it on for them. You know your kids best and this might be a way to help squash needing to explain something to young ears before they’re ready.
With almost one
MP3 player for each person in the house, we’re also working hard to keep things on the up-and-up. The kids all understand that the only MP3s that get synced on their players are from CDs we have purchased or that have been legally downloaded for them – right now that really only applies to our teenager, the rest have GeekMom or GeekDad putting the music on their MP3 player.
