Blocking inappropriate music for teen- how?

[WhiteLily1]

My child is 12 nearly 13 and is getting into music. I thought Amazon family plan would allow me to set my child up under our household and set parental controls to block explicit lyrics on his iPhone. After an hour of frustrating searching through settings I can’t find how to do this.
Is anyone able to help? How can my child listen to music but I have some control over inappropriate songs and podcasts.

To those who said what songs? I’m talking something like necro - who’s yo daddy for example, or to a lesser degree khia- my neck my back.
Google the lyrics if you don’t know those (to be honest I hope you don’t) The second is actually a catchy song but not one I would want my 12 year old singing around the house. The first I just don’t see how it’s appropriate for a 12 /13 year old to
be listening to.

Yes- bless, that’s about as bad as it got that was easily accessible anyway!

I think there is Spotify family for £20 per month but I don’t know how good it is?

By education I mean a kind of open discussion about what he is listening to - what does he think about it? What does he think it means? How does it make him feel when he hears these things? Where did the music come from (i.e. its history and cultural background) and how does it affect the people who it's aimed at?

I mean talking about its meaning (if he doesn't really understand it but pretend he does, like a lot of kids), why you don't like it and how it makes you feel when you hear it. The impact you think it has on its listeners and the wider society.

Use it to teach him about misogyny and how it holds women back and makes life unpleasant for us.

You really won't be able to stop him hearing the kind of racist, homophobic, misogynistic crap (that seriously is not worse than the shite my brother used to play back in the day) and then actively looking for it so arm him with the facts and the opinions that may differ from his own and teach him why it is inappropriate.

I appreciate what you are saying and with my daughter we would absolutely have had this conversation.
But if I tried to talk to my son about any of this he wouldn’t even be able to have the tools to discuss. I would get ok mate- I get it now stop talking. And that would be about it. He doesn’t have a clue about misogyny and hasn’t the maturity to discuss. He would die a thousand deaths and physically block his ears if I asked him what he feels about the lyrics wet pussy for example, where the term comes from, what it means and how does it make him and others feel.
He just isn’t mature enough. Which is another reason he isn’t mature enough to be exposed to this kind of crap.

Nirvana were fairly mainstream - at least, I heard a lot of them and had no trouble getting hold of them - and look up the lyrics to songs like Moist Vagina or Paper Cuts or Polly Wants A Cracker.

Do you know what my mum did to put my brother off that sort of stuff? Bought the CDs, played them in the car and sang along to them, immediately taking away their edgy, cool factor. It worked too.

All the more reason then to share those ideas and give him the tools to discuss it. I don't mean having a formal, sit-down discussion with him; I mean conversations that happen organically as they come up, like when you randomly hear those songs when you're together.

🤣 I love the singing along idea- genius.
I adored Nirvana as a teen but then I was about 15-16 when I first was allowed to buy albums and listen to them.
I think the issue is now kids are exposed to all sorts far younger than we were back then. At 12 I was still listening to Jason and kylie 😢 Not people singing about licking and fucking assholes. It’s a sad world.

I know, to think "smack my bitch up" isn't just as awful. It's all well and good censoring if that's what you want, but teens have a nasty habit of getting round that. You realise they're going to hear it on some other kids phone on loudspeaker right, usually on a bus🙄

I still don’t want him to be exposed to that crap yet though. Discussion or not. Just the same as I restrict apps to make it harder for porn to get through.

Yes- I’m aware- I just don’t want it to my my kid that’s playing it on loud speaker. If every parent felt the same then maybe kids would keep a shred of innocence for a little longer. It’s only there once and when it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

The two songs you mentioned- Necro Who’s Yo Daddy was released in 2005 and Khia My Neck My. Back was released in 2002 both 20+ years ago.

At 12 they know all of the swears anyway so I'm not sure you're really protecting them from much.

I'm not sure listening to the 'sanitised' edits makes a difference at all, to be honest. I think kids will just go an watch the proper version on Youtube.

I let DS listen to it (I like rap anyway) and find the conversations it raises around language and mysogyny to be really helpful.

I'm not playing WAP tho 😂

Don't bother downloading a different music platform such as Apple Music unless you know they are going to use it. When DD got a phone I added her to my Apple plan so upgraded to family and it was fine until Spotify was crowned the cool platform but now I pay for both because she won't use Apple. (I only get Spotify when on a deal)

As for the rest, honestly, put down your pearls. DD is 13 and some of her songs have made me gasp but then I remember singing my neck, my back when I was around 13 thinking it was so cool while my mum was bright red. It's literally that naughtiness that draws them to it and if he can't listen to the same songs as his peers he will find a way around it anyway. She's been listening to me rap along in the car to Eminem, Dre and the like since the day she was born and she understands that's not how you talk ti woman, these aren't words she can say and it's just music.

Urgh. Thanks for that swift punch in the stomach. Surely it was no more than 5 years ago. I'm still a teenager myself 👵🏻👵🏻👵🏻

I do understand what you are saying about his exposure and maturity, but you are on a hiring to nothing as he's going to hear it some way or other. He'll either get around whatever restrictions you put in place or hear it via friends etc. it's much better to start educating him rather than just trying to restrict access. If he's immature, this the needs to be done in an age appropriate way. I would be very concerned that you can't have these conversations with him now, the window will be closed to start them soon. You need to endure that conversations like these are part of your relationship before he's too old.

I’m totally with you on this. The lyrics to today’s songs are awful and I’m also angry how how much was hidden in 90s songs. I’m angry because there has been a constant push to expose our children to explicit adult content and music has been the easiest way to do it under the guise of ‘art.’ I’m tired of it being so predictable - graphic sex and drug taking, I thought art was supposed to make you think, not be so damn repetitive and relentless to the point where I now know any young artist promoted to 12 year olds is going to have a bunch of outrageously inappropriate lyrics, along the same tired themes, like I just KNOW.
I also know the pendulum is about to swing, and the constant media drive to push sex and other adult content onto children will stop, but I’m wondering how ridiculous things need to get first

I have raised 2 teen boys and think the only solution is to stop them having phones as they will always be 2 steps ahead of you and be able to access whatever they like. Idk what the solution is. I was never that worried about songs. I was more worried about all the content they could access on the internet generally and I think it’s impossible for parents to police and a huge issue in today’s society.

Growing up in the 80s and nineties and the BBC were good at "banning" songs from the radio which just made it cooler. We didn't have streamed music back then but what you could do was ask an older sibling to go to the record shop with your pocket money to buy the song for you. And when they started putting "parental advisory" stickers on rap songs, the rappers just wore T-shirts with that logo on it, making it cooler as well.

You could get anything if you asked around, despite my parents trying to stop my brother and I from getting it. My brother used to get bootleg horror movie DVDs and 16+ video games.

It's even harder to restrict content now because everything is much more easily available. So you have to educate your kids instead.

i know he will hear things - I just don’t want the whole catalogue of music ever written to be available to him just yet- the same as I wouldn’t want him searching for any film and watching on his phone (but he may well see part of an 18 film on someone else’s). There is a big difference between other kids phones and having it all available on your own.
He knows about inappropriate content and lyrics and I’ve tried to ask him about it but he just likes the rap songs (Eminem mostly) but I just don’t want him going down a further rabbit hole to nastier content just yet- he has plenty of years to come to listen to that sort of stuff is he wants to)
Why are people so resistant to protecting children? These parental controls should be very easy to use and set up. Parents Should be able to select the level of explicit you allow.
It’s just not good enough and in no way the same as popping into a shop to buy a record or CD. It’s just a totally different level having the world at your finger tips at 12.

Not worried about swears. It’s more the sexual and violet content that I want to keep him away from just now.
Hes not allowed access to you tube unless I’m in the room (not talking about looking at a friends phone).
He has parental controls so only apps I have approved, no internet unless I’m there and no social media except what’s app which I check.
All these things will come in time but there is no rush.

Yes it is a huge issue I agree. I do think things will change in the future and it will be socially non acceptable the stuff we let kids have today- but that is still a way off.
Can I ask how your boys when younger accessed the internet without your supervision?

I got my first Cd player at 12 and my first CD was Snoop Dogg Doggystyle. So it’s not just the tech - children just often want to push boundaries and will find a way to do so.

if you feel this strongly then you can just delete the music streaming option from
any device he can access? Pick some music to download directly onto his phone and then you can censor it specifically. The thing about any sort of censorship tool is that it will mostly block language - not content - so the actual song will be the same with the same topics, just with some noise instead of the actual curse words. So it wouldn’t be blocking the content you are worried about even if your son wouldn’t immediately turn it off.

Am glad he’s using headphones on the bus! All too often here the buses are filled with groups of young teens blasting all sorts of stuff with no headphones in sight. The music is fine but the endless TikTok scrolling is just annoying to listen to.

Most of the concerning things my daughter has come to me about has come from social media, not music so I’m pretty strict on what she can have on her phone herself. Kind of pointless as so many of her friends have Snapchat and whatnot anyway but at least she isn’t sitting in her room on her own scrolling through this garbage.