I'm sure we're not the only family who sometimes dread long car journeys with their little ones. Little Miss C is now of an age where she hardly ever naps in the car and she also seems to be very particular about what music she likes. We've had several children's music CDs in there, but she insisted on listening to them over and over again and if we tried to play one of our CDs or have the radio on we were greeted with screams from the back seat of "my music! I want my music now!" Sometimes it is just easier to give in rather than endure ear torture, especially whilst trying to concentrate on the motorway.
Mr C came up with a genius idea though which I want to share. He's been saying that he's going to blog about it himself, but seeing as he hasn't yet I thought I'd get in there first. Full credit has to go to him for it.
He sat Little Miss C down on his knee one day in front of his computer and started to pick tracks out of iTunes for her to see what she liked. Now, Mr C has quite an eclectic music collection, but he tried to pick out songs that he thought she might like - either because they mentioned animals, had strange sounds in them, or were just the sorts of things that everyone wants to get up and dance to, even a two year old.
The result of this afternoon of fun was a playlist of tracks that she liked which he was then able to burn to a CD. Said CD was presented to Little Miss C as "her music" and as she'd had an input into choosing the tracks she really did take ownership of it. At last our car journeys were accompanied by the likes of The Dead Victorians, Rolf Harris, Chas and Dave and Johnny Cymbal rather than another rendition of the Wheels on the Bus. Vanilla Ice and the Ghostbusters theme also make an appearance - but I'm a bit concerned as to what both are doing in Mr C's music collection. There are specific songs that LMC asks for by name and she also now sings along to quite a few of them. I've even caught Master C bopping along to a couple of tracks.
We've told a few friends about what we've done and they're all amazed about what a simple yet effective idea it is. It's very easy to choose music that you think your family will like, but I will keep the pressure on Mr C to share a full track listing of what's in our car. Although I now know all the tracks to sing along to I have to admit to not actually knowing what all of them are.
It may well be time for Mr C to create volume 2 though, especially before we have another journey up north together!
Disclaimer: This is a featured post in association with Carcraft as part of their Drive Happy initiative.
