Do you sing with your kids?

[Eos]

Ever, often, daily?  Christmas carols only?  Singing with my kids brings me joy.  We sing rounds, goofy songs, carols, folksongs.  I sang them all to sleep when they were young.  What are your favorite lullabies?  I'm always looking for new songs, please share!

My girls and I love working out harmonies.  Dd just taught us this: 

http://cindykallet.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Farthest-Field.pdf

Editing to add that dh never sings.  Ever.  He likes hearing us sing, but if I could change one thing in our marriage and only one, it might be that.

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by Harpymom

[Carrie12345]

My kids don’t particularly like to sing. 😳🤯 Except as necessary in musical theatre.

My boys play online video games with my friend’s daughter, and she randomly breaks out into song as they play. It makes my heart happy.

I mostly make up songs about what a pain my dog is being, where did all the cheese go, and why can’t I find my sunglasses. In between TikTok songs and other ear worms, lol.

[Scarlett]

I did sing to my son a lot.  He loves music and has since infancy.  I remember walking him in my arms and singing.  I stopped singing and he started to grunt at me until I started singing again.  

Edited September 1, 2021 by Scarlett

[Katy]

I try to, bit they generally prefer dance.

[PeterPan]

My ds can't sing. Well he tries now a little. He's had umpteen years of music therapy (no help) and done some work with me on pitch (part of auditory processing because pitch is your first piece of language, even before phonemes, hence baby cooing and demonstrating intonation patterns), but he has apraxia and dyslexia meaning reading and motor planning speech at the same time are hard. 

We'll see. It's on the docket to work on pitch some more, so he may get there. I try to keep it casual. But to sing to him, absolutely. 

[historically accurate]

Almost Never. I sing in the car daily though, which they roll their eyes at. 

None of them like to sing - well, one does, but she gets lightheaded due to blood pressure issues, so she doesn't sing. 

[Lucy the Valiant]

Yes. ❤️ It's part of our daily school routine, along with reading out loud.

[MercyA]

Neither of us are good singers, but DD and I do like to sing along with our music in the car. 🙂 

[Ailaena]

DS has been singing since before he could talk.  He’s still constantly humming a tune everywhere, all day.

I am not a singer, but I definitely sing with him and teach him songs.  Over a couple of years, we learned so many sea shanties/maritime songs, now he likes Viking songs 🤷🏻‍♀️

[J-rap]

Not as a planned event, but often one of us will suddenly remember a song and sing a line of it out loud, and soon everyone else joins in.

[SKL]

My kids and I all enjoy music and singing.

However, my girls are 14 and I haven't been allowed to sing around them for at least a year now.  😛  (I still do, but they clearly do not relish it.)

I can't really remember how much we've sung together in the past.  I sang, they sang, but how much did we sing the same song at the same time?  I don't know.  Is that odd?

When my kids were little, they used to play out whole musicals such as the Phantom of the Opera with their Barbie dolls.  😛  Fun times!

[alisoncooks]

We sing in the car. We sing at church. I tend to make up little songs throughout the week (take a song tune and sub in my own weirdo lyrics).

We don't necessarily have an organized singing time every day. (Mine are teens.)

[DawnM]

When they were younger, yes.   Now?   The older ones hate singing together and my Aspie hates singing in general.

[Eos]

This is actually a spinoff from @MEmama's thread - I was thinking about my oldest leaving for college and remembered that his particular lullaby was The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell - I still have a hard time singing it without getting a lump in my throat.

Well the years spin by and now the boy is twenty/though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true/there'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty/before the last revolving year is through

[kbutton]

3 hours ago, PeterPan said:

My ds can't sing. Well he tries now a little. He's had umpteen years of music therapy (no help) and done some work with me on pitch (part of auditory processing because pitch is your first piece of language, even before phonemes, hence baby cooing and demonstrating intonation patterns), but he has apraxia and dyslexia meaning reading and motor planning speech at the same time are hard. 

We'll see. It's on the docket to work on pitch some more, so he may get there. I try to keep it casual. But to sing to him, absolutely. 

So, when you say he can't sing, do you mean he's tone deaf? Can't hold a tune? The speech doesn't come out as music? You tend to talk about his pitch enough that I have wondered what you mean by it.

Being tone deaf doesn't need to mean you don't sing. Some of the most joyful singers I know are tone deaf, lol! They still enjoy it tremendously.

We are a singing family, but I am not a good singer. We're to the point that my kids sing more than I do, and that's fine. We all sing to the radio, and we all sang kids songs when mine were little. Raffi was big here when they were little. So was some Disney stuff that isn't Disney music. It's the Disneyland band singing classic kid songs--four albums in total. Not all are still politically correct, but you can skip them. They have stuff on them like Froggy Went A Courtin' and Big Rock Candy Mountain. 

My FOO also sang a lot even though we weren't all that great. We sang in the car a lot. 

One of my kids also turned out to be a particularly good whistler, which is fun. He gets it from my DH and his parents. 

[kbutton]

31 minutes ago, Harpymom said:

This is actually a spinoff from @MEmama's thread - I was thinking about my oldest leaving for college and remembered that his particular lullaby was The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell - I still have a hard time singing it without getting a lump in my throat.

Well the years spin by and now the boy is twenty/though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true/there'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty/before the last revolving year is through

Our favorite nostalgia album is Station Wagon by Sara Groves. https://www.saragroves.com/store/floodplain-36dha-gx4b3-drnfa-r9d27-w6n35-clep6-f9rpd  Even my kids love it.

 

[Loowit]

I used to sing to them daily since they were newborns and I would rock them to sleep.  I miss those days.  As they got older we would do a lot of silly songs and stuff throughout the day.  My mom was the same way with me.  My dad comes from a musical family that would do family gatherings and everyone who played and instrument would bring it and it would be a big sing along.

My DD as a young girl liked to think of life as being a musical and would randomly break out in song.  Now that they are older, we still do some singing but not a ton.  DD enjoys singing and has done a bit with a choir.  She still likes to sing along to music and stuff.  Neither boy really does much singing, not sure why.  My middle has a great voice, but he is very reserved.  Youngest does some silly singing still sometimes but that is about it.  I sing in the car, but the boys rarely join in.

[BlsdMama]

Always, often, daily. Hard for me now but we listen to a wide array of genres and usually sing in the car LOUDLY except when DH is with us. Everything from VeggieTaleshymns to Kpop to Hamilton, country, classic rock, praise and worship. I am not musical, can’t sing worth a hoot, can’t even clap, but love to sing. 😉 

 

ETA- DH does not sing. He can hear of someone is bad. I cannot. I’m aware I’m truly AWFUL because of general consensus 😂 but it does not inhibit me in home or car. 

Edited September 1, 2021 by BlsdMama

[rebcoola]

We like to sing and dance together.  It's ramped up the last year or so because youngest is absolutely obsessed with music.  Every problem or tantrum can be fixed by putting on some good tunes.

[El...]

We sing a particular bedtime song every night. The song is a tad young for the kids now, but they won't change it.

The kids and I have been doing a cool music thing for school, too! We're learning all the songs in Get America Singing...Again! I look up a few renditions of the song on YouTube, we discuss the cultural context (sometimes fascinating), and then we sing it every day until we're decent at it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0793566363/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_5K71E6VA2W4ZD73SWZ9N

[HS Mom in NC]

Extremely rarely and only to a song on the radio when we're driving somewhere.

[MooCow]

We sang all the time when I was a band mom. My band kids would belt out my favorites as I drove them. When I look back, I'm so grateful that I had such a fun bunch of kids. 

I also remember taking a group of kids from our neighborhood to play basketball. We would all sing along to Journey. 

[purpleowl]

We sing all the time. Lots of Disney songs and hymns, plus made-up nonsense songs. In non-covid times, our kids sing in a community children's choir. We don't do lullabies, really. We intentionally made bedtime routines brief when we first established them. 

Singing also causes plenty of arguments around here. She's singing when I was singing first; you're singing that in the wrong key; but I *HAVE* to sing this right now (while my sibling is trying to do a thing requiring concentration) because it's stuck in my head; etc. 

My 7yo has lately been insisting that I harmonize for every song we hear in the car, because he's determined to learn how harmony works. 

[Sneezyone]

Yep. We sing. DS sings in the shower and when he's doing homework. DD sings in the bathroom. We used to have random dance parties during DH's deployments. It doubled as a way to tucker them out before bed but we'd turn the music up crazy loud and sing and dance our heads off. We still do this in the car just with chair dancing. DH sings from time to time but we discourage this activity. He is always off key and off beat.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Eos]

1 hour ago, purpleowl said:

She's singing when I was singing first; you're singing that in the wrong key; but I *HAVE* to sing this right now (while my sibling is trying to do a thing requiring concentration) because it's stuck in my head; etc. 

I kind of love this, even though it's probably a real headache for you!  

[KungFuPanda]

I sang to them when they were babies until they were old enough to ask me not to.  Singing is FUN, but I am truly terrible.  I'm not being remotely modest.  I think it's sorcery and I cannot make my voice do those things. Unfortunately for everyone I know, I'm really good at remembering lyrics.  I know ALL the words. Everyone else in my house can carry a tune.  Dd was in her university women's chorus.  Future DSIL has a beautiful voice and works in several local professional theatres.  If him and DD one day produce a child who can't sing, we'll bond over that. I'm from an extremely musical family but I cannot sing or play an instrument.  I do have rhythm, so dancing it is. 😆

[Tap]

Not past toddler age. I am not a good singer and don't want to leave my kids with scarred memories.

[lulalu]

We sing a hymn or two daily. I usually sing a song at bedtime. And every once in a while we sing outside our devotion time. I love to sing, dh doesn't as much, DS enjoys singing.