Positive songs for children

In addition of being a Montessori teacher, I have recently qualified as a Yoga teacher for children. In the yoga children classes, I use lots of music. I started to be very careful choosing positives songs only. Some popular songs with the tween/teen have such a degrading message so I have started to listen carefully to the lyrics making sure I make them listen only to songs that are appropriate.

At the same time, at home, my 9 years old started to sing loudly all the songs on the radio. Very popular songs… And one more, most of the songs have content that are not appropriate (heavy sexual content, lots of sad songs, crude words…). And I was constantly explaining the meaning of those songs as my daughter was asking questions.

Two years ago, we stopped listening to the news on the radio. I was in the car with the children much more and I was able to tune out when there were the news, the kids were not. At least twice a day, they were exposed to local news of murders, kidnappings, war in the world, news about cancer. While all that is the reality of this world, my then 7 and 3 years had no need to be exposed to it every day. They were anxious about it, asking questions: “where did it happen? will they die? will I have cancer? Is it dangerous to do this or that?”. After two years without news (as we don’t listen to news on the radio as a family and us, parents, we don’t watch, read or listen to mainstream news and we carefully inform ourselves), we feel much better, less concerned on a daily basis and we have less fear and anxiety. It’s such an habit that as soon as we hear the news jingle, we turn off the radio and my daughter makes sure she reminds me.

According to a survey, one of the biggest contributors to daily stress is watching, reading or listening to the news (see here).

If you’re interested, read here how we can be literally addicted to the news. Very interesting!

Since I make sure I read good news on my fb feed through pages such as Uplift connect, Good News shared, Actions for happiness, etc… They are many others! That way my feed is covered of ultra positive stories of people helping the best way they can their direct community.

So, on the same principles, I started to question the songs we were listening to. I noticed that I had a tendency to listen to sad love songs, melancholic songs about life (lost of youth, regrets, past mistakes and failures were recurrent themes of those songs) or politically engaged songs (but with no positive solutions more about the world is damned, what are we gonna do!). And as my children were more able to understand the lyrics, the messages started to concern them too.

Clearly I was raised with those songs. But clearly they were not uplifting songs and I started to notice how much they were impacting my mood. I think I noticed it more recently as I was using positive songs in my “work” and coming back to my “sad classics at home” or enduring songs that I didn’t choose on the radio. It’s new for me to spend so much time driving so I’m more exposed than ever.

So recently, I have consciously decided to listen to positive, uplifting songs “only”. I have created my own playlist and if my mood is low, I put those songs on and quickly my mood changes for the better. It makes me sing, it makes me dance, and my children love those songs too. They also have a positive message about appreciating live, about trying, about pursuing and accomplishing your dreams. They make me strong, fearless and happy!

Studies have found that hearing happy songs can raise heart rate, lower stress levels, and increase immunity to illness. Check this article about the surprising health benefits of listening to music.

So here my playlist in no particular order:

1. Robbie William: Love my life. I use this song in my yoga class and we practice the 3 warrior poses with positive affirmations, my 4 years old knows it my hearth and what is a better message that to say “I love my life, I’m beautiful, I’m powerful, I’m free, I love my life, I’m wonderful, I’m magical, I am me, I love my life”
2. Marvin Gaye: Ain’t no mountain high enough. It seems to me that it could be a message from a parent to his child, it’s how I understand it and it’s the message I want to send to my children
3. Pharrell Williams: Happy. Just a happy song!
4. Happy days (generic of the tv show): because every day is a happy day (good bye the argh it’s Monday!
5. Louis Armstrong: What a wonderful world.
6. Lou Reed: Just a perfect day
7. Jimmy Cliff: You can get it if you really want it. Another one that my two children sing along. They keep saying what they want to do with their life after singing this one and how they will achieve their goals! Yes even my 4 years old (he will be a builder, build an entire city named after him so he has to be strong and to be strong, he has to do sport and eat lots of proteins!)
8. Israel Hawai: Somewhere over the rainbow
9. Katrina and the waves: Walking on sunshine.
10. Shakira: Try everything. (and if you have seen Zootropolis, you can use the story of the rabbit becoming what she wanted to be to reinforce the message of the song)
11. Bob Marley: three little birds. I’m sure you will agree, that using “Don’t worry about a thing, because everything is gonna be alright” is surely uplifting.
12. Bobby Mc Ferrin: Don’t worry, be happy.
13. James Brown: I feel good
14. Josh Groban: You raise me up. This is the message I want my children to get from me. I would feel that I have done my “parenting job” properly is as adults, they want to sing me that one!

They are some other on my list that are more for me to listen to as part of the text is not enough children orientated like Cold Play: hymn for the weekend (as telling to teenagers in my classes that love is like a drink, and life like a drug is not a great message) or Relax from Mika (I love that song so much! I danced during my first pregnancy daily on it and with my daughter in my arms for months but there is a sad side in it and as my children are very inquisitive, I don’t want them to question too much about the meaning).

What about you? Do you have positive songs that you like to listen to? Share in comments!