How Do You Deal With “peer Pressure” ?

Anika
My son was a quick learner, great carnatic singer till a prolonged ill phase of his - he stopped his classes when he was 10. After recovery, he did attend the classes half-heartedly, but lost interest and refused to go after 1 year. He was 12 yo when he left it.

Now, at 16, he sings constantly - ALL the time - but western songs!

I joined his classes 4 years back, and restarted my own carnatic vocal interest!
So the past 4 years, I would write the swaras on my whiteboard, singing while cooking, or taking time out for practicing... soon he started to sing with me ... he would pick up the song pretty quickly...

We would record a few songs together to share with family. Sing some kritis together for each pooja ! Sometimes we would just play antakshari with carnatic kritis and bhajans!

My DH encouraged me to continue, because later when he grows older and goes out for studies/ work, he would sing these songs! Or whenever he wants to learn, he could restart easily!

Currently, as he is in adolescence, his voice and pitch has changed, so we both are unable to match our pitches and sing together, yet we do continue to have that bonding over music! He sometimes call up our music mami to ask her at what pitch he should sing a particular song and relearn an old song over a phone call with her!

My mother always says - children do what you DO, not what you SAY!!

So keep practising YOUR own dance moves, get your husband to encourage you (in front of your daughter at least), keep encouraging ! Maybe she will ask you herself!

 

Totally agree with hrastro!! I started doing art to get my son interested and now whenever I am sketching something, he joins me with his art journal, pen and crayons

 

I think we need to go easy on kids and not put pressure on them to be over achievers..
They have their own interests and strengths and let them play to their strengths..
Anyway in some years they will be burdened with studies and have to survive in the rat race, for boards, university admissions etc...
No need to giveback in to peer pressure , like that mom is putting the child in so and so class or giving extra coaching...
Here in India, kids are forced into coding classes online from young age...
To what extent is it useful and is it required? Some kids love coding and have a keen interest in programming then it’s fine...but just going with trend isn’t right..they may have other interests...
Given a chance, during my childhood days of such a facility was available I wish I was able to attend Karate class for self defence, public speaking classes or book clubs as I was a shy kid who needed social skills to be developed more..I was good at art and craft, during childhood, but could not pursue.. it’s quite an under rated skill with most kids learning classical dance or classical singing only.

 

Ethe thaan @anika987 , I went through a few years back. My son was in middle school and my daughter in elementary. They have wonderful voices and semma beat sense. So we started them on a very good teacher who was young and finishing his phd. He would engage them with different themes in carnatic music. They both learnt for about 3 yrs, appuram my son got emotionally affected by my mom passing away and started creating tantrums.
Since he was very close to my mom, he was affected by it and used to go to the class every week just because we said so. But avanikku rombave emotionala affect panniduthu. So we stopped him and started taking my daughter . But my daughter since she was very young wanted the support of her brother and refused to go.
So we stopped both of them.
But my son , since he has the music gene in him, started learning drums and asked to go for drums lessons in high school. He came up very popular in his high school especially because he was the only percussionist available till he graduated high school. It came to a point when we started worrying it might affect his grades to get into univ. because he was being taken around to all competitions local and in the U.S [Boston].
But overall it worked out well.
My daughter shows interest in flute adn wants to learn but seriya teacher elle enge.

So overall my point is, if they don't want to continue, take a step back and let them do what they think is right. I think as parents we need to relax too. If you give your child a break and make her think about it, she might come back with her own interest in music. If not vocal, it can come as instrumental. So don't pressurize and make them hate carnatic music.

 

I’ve seen a lot of Indian parents put their girls in very intensive bharatnatyam classes all the way up to grand arangetrams. Then the kids stop once they become involved in school activities and/or want to do what their friends are doing. I’m wondering what to do with my little one.