Do You Know What Your Children Are Listening To?

Writer Kandy Stroud’s 15-year-old daughter said, “You’ve got to hear this, Mom!” Then she added, “But don’t listen to the words.” She played a song by a famous rock artist. Her mother listened, and above the beat she heard the words. The song was about a girl sexually abusing herself in a hotel lobby.

Kandy Stroud, writing in Newsweek, continues: “Unabashedly sexual lyrics like these . . . compose the musical diet millions of children are now being fed at concerts, on albums, on radio and MTV [a cable TV channel that specializes in rock music in the United States].”

She added: “As both parent and musician I am concerned about the number of hit tunes that can only be called porn rock, and about the tasteless, graphic and gratuitous sexuality saturating the airwaves and filtering into our homes.”

As a parent, are you concerned about the type of music that is influencing your children, or the type of music that your children are choosing? Why is it important? Because it can tell you something about the way your child reasons and what the heart is set on. As Newsweek reported, Dr. Joseph Novello, director of a drug program, asks teenage patients about their preference in music. “Whether it’s satanic, sexual or drug-oriented​—it tells him something about the child’s state of mind.”

Have you checked your child’s state of mind lately? Do you know what kind of music he or she is listening to at home or elsewhere? If you conclude that the music is not upbuilding, how will you handle the matter? With dogmatic denunciation or with careful reasoning and discipline? The apostle Paul counseled: “You fathers, again, must not goad your children to resentment, but give them the instruction, and the correction, which belong to a Christian upbringing.”​—Ephesians 6:4, The New English Bible.

There is enough variety of musical expression for one to be able to find pleasing music with clean lyrics. Maybe some might have to change their taste in music, but from a Christian viewpoint that is a normal part of ‘putting on the new Christlike personality.’ With the right desire and motivation, it can be done.​—Ephesians 4:20-24.