How to Monitor Underage Kids Who Listen to Hardcore Rap Music
Monitoring what your child listens to and how he spends his free time is important to his development, according to the organization KidsHealth. Hardcore rap is a form of music that may contain explicit lyrics you don't want your child exposed to. Monitoring this, however, can be difficult since kids spend so much time with their friends, at school and on the Internet.
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Instructions
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Listen together. When you are with your child in the car or at the house, tell her to play some of her music that she listens to. Ask her questions about it, such as what it is she likes and why she listens to it. If you know why she listens to it, then you may be able to find alternative groups who have similar rap styles, but have more age-appropriate songs.
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Set limits on the music your child listens to. You may not be able to fully control what he listens to, but if you can set limits on the time he can listen then you monitor how much of it he really listens to. This keeps the amount of hardcore rap he is exposed to a minimum.
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Look up the lyrics. Sometimes, in hardcore rap, the words flow so quickly that you can't understand exactly what is being said. You can look in the CD jackets or online. Some sites exist specifically to give people the lyrics to songs. Use these to look up the lyrics for the the songs your child is listening to. There may be a few songs you are OK with your child listening to on a CD so let your child know which are OK, rather than saying none are allowable.
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Monitor her online listening. Kids can do just about anything online, so set up parental controls that ensure they aren't going to sites that have hardcore rap on them. You can check your computer's history to see the sites that she has been going to, and if they contain hardcore rap, block them. If she asks you about it, simply explain that it is because the music is inappropriate for kids her age.
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Look at the parental advisory labels on the music your child buys. These are meant to prevent children from being exposed to inappropriate things. Explain it to your child like you would explain why a certain movie is inappropriate.
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References
- Photo Credit listening to music. image by Anna Chelnokova from Fotolia.com
