My 13 year old shares music with me. She plays songs I may like when we're in the car. It's not for monitoring purposes. I have actually told her that buying edited music is like taking a marker and trying to improve the Mona Lisa. It's wrong and I won't spend my money on it. We have talked about the messages in songs. A major conversation on red flags actually came from listening to "Baby, it's cold outside." We agreed it made a nice sounding song, but anyone who acted like that should be ditched post haste.

No but I don't have to monitor because the kids play it in earshot, and they don't like when music gets in their words "weird.

OP here. Glad I am not alone. I have friends that don't allow their children to listen to the radio, etc. I think it's crazy at this age.

No.

I'm often aware of what they're listening to and sometimes we talk music, but I don't intentionally monitor nor would I ban or censor.

Everything is allowed. I explain what things mean. DD and her friend were SHOCKED when I explained what an anaconda refers to (Nicki Minaj).

If DD can articulate WHY she likes music that denigrates women I'd be fine with her listening to it. I might not want to hear it, but she can listen to what she likes. She is almost 13.

Ditto

You should have seen my boys face when I explained douche.

Nope, I don't monitor. I do what you do, OP. With the addition of digging up some really old examples of objectionable stuff (listen to Jelly Roll Morton's "Murder Ballad" sometime) to occasionally make a point.

Anonymous wrote:My son is 13 and is starting to like music I don't love, but we talk about it, we talk about some of the lyrics, I explain some of my concerns, and then I pretty much say, music is an artistic expression, and you have a right to like what you like, I just want you to understand what you are hearing and that drug use, mistreatment of women, etc. are not our values, but i am not going to tell you what to listen to or ban it. How do others handle this situation?

Pretty much the same was as you. I think the key here (as with all things teen) is to keep the lines of communication open.

There is no way you can realistically monitor everything your teen listens to. They are on Spotify with headphones and could be sitting right next to you and you have no idea. So don't bother monitoring the specifics - but of course have the conversation about values.

I didn't allow music that had a parental advisory (or required the clean version) via iTunes until my kids were teenagers.

Once they hit their teens, though, we just had the discussion you mentioned.

My son is 13 and is starting to like music I don't love, but we talk about it, we talk about some of the lyrics, I explain some of my concerns, and then I pretty much say, music is an artistic expression, and you have a right to like what you like, I just want you to understand what you are hearing and that drug use, mistreatment of women, etc. are not our values, but i am not going to tell you what to listen to or ban it. How do others handle this situation?