Blended Family Music...Brings The Blended Family Together

Blended family music is a concept that premises around music being truly the “universal language”. You may like classical and your children may like hip hop but whatever your preference, this is an ideal tool for bringing the family together, blended or otherwise. The internet and technology has opened up a vast opportunity to bring our favorite music into the home.

It’s Saturday morning and you haven’t seen your wee ones for up to two weeks. The house needs tidied and yet you are faced with a dilemma. No one likes doing chores and when you have children only part time and others full time, it makes it rather difficult to equitably distribute those weekend cleaning duties. You don’t want your child spending their valuable time with you cleaning up messes they had no part in making. And yet, you don’t want your full time children having to clean while the others go off and do whatever they want. And most of all, the responsibility of keeping the home must be recognized and understood by every member of the household.

As with all things blended, it’s just not simple. This is one area that music can really help.

Children enjoy sharing music with their parents and each other. A beat by any other name is just that… a beat. If you look hard enough, you and your children can find songs that please you both. There are tons of alternatives out there for children’s tastes that are fun and educational. There are hip and current albums done for children by children. And of course don’t forget to throw in good old fashion kids’ songs... you know, the ones you sang growing up…

One of our favorite activities is cranking up the tunes on the computer. We download mp3's or use Yahoo Music, or even pull up Yahoo Videos online. Then each of us goes about our duties, singing, bouncing, laughing and acting silly with one another. Before we know it, the chores are done, we have done something “together” rather than apart, and everyone was part of the accomplishment. That's blended family music at work.

There are additional benefits to being involved in what your children listen to. It is a huge influence in their lives from a very young age. Despite your diligence to shelter them from “inappropriate” lyrics, it is very likely they are exposed to them through external influences.

Being involved in their music downloads and video downloads, enables open discussion to difficult topics. Once they see you are not “against” what they like, but rather prefer other songs for the good qualities they convey, you will be surprised how their play lists, video downloads, and all around choices will evolve.

Don’t be afraid to expose them to the good stuff. You know the “oldies but goodies”! Before my kids could talk, they could sing “I love rock-n-roll”… and by the time they could talk it was changed to “I love tootsie rolls” with the same tune! See how much fun blended family music can be!

The negative influences will always be around our children. However, being involved and showing an interest in their preferences will open so many doors to that which is our ultimate goal as parents and step parents… to raise well adjusted young men and women who will think for themselves and make good decisions in their life.