PLUGGIN’ AWAY – NOTES Here are some new songs to sing and laugh along with, and stir your imagination. The suggested activities are guidelines to help parents, teachers, and other human service professionals focus on interpersonal issues and to open up communications with their children. The exercises should generate ideas for other exercises. The questions have no “right” answers. We […]
Tag: Kids
Peter Alsop’s SONGS TO CHEW podcast
Peter Alsop’s Songs To Chew podcast, and it’s going great! You can type that into where ever you get your podcasts and it should be there.Hit follow and every week you’ll get a new episode! (Or, just click on this link:https://peteralsop.podbean.com) I’ve made my albums into chapters, and eventually all my songs and albums will […]
Bored, Bored, Bored!
BORED, BORED, BORED! When we feel stuck in a boring situation, it's tempting to blame other people. At least that gives us something to do! We get angry and feel self-righteous. We complain that life's "not fair". Boredom comes out of believing that we're responsible for occupying ourselves, and for some reason, our well of […]
Singing With Kids About Loss
Most of us are not prepared when a serious loss first hits us. We are sheltered from death in our culture. Many of us grow up with no exposure to people who are in the process of dying. Except for the grief we have seen acted on television, there are very few role models or […]
A Lift In The Last Verse
Watching a “reality” television show the other night, I found myself fascinated with people I didn’t even know, as they tried to cope with their difficult situations. I thought to myself, “I have better things to do with my precious life. Why am I watching this?!” My own real life is already filled up with […]
Possibilities
We know that music is a great way to pass on cultural norms to children. Our ethnic songs tell rich stories and carry the sounds and rhythms that cling like soil to our family’s roots. They enrich our lives by reminding us that we have come together from other countries, religions and races with rituals […]
Where Did All The Older Kids Go?
As a kid, when anyone in my family had a thought, it would form in their head and come immediately out of their mouth. So one of the skills I’m still working on while becoming an adult is the art of reflection; chewing on one’s thoughts a bit before sharing them with others. I’ve also […]
What Does “IT” Mean?
For those of us who do it, one of the benefits of doing kids’ music is that we can continually access that joyful, inquisitive, full-of-life child within us that gets dried up, beaten down and squeezed out of most other adults in our society. As a psychologist, I’m constantly reminded that adults are simply little […]
Kid’s Music
When someone we love dies, or when we lose a pet, or when our pumpkin seed project at school wilts and dries up in the window, while Darlene Snodquist’s pumpkin seed plant is lush and green and looks like something Jack could climb in another week or so, … we get another chance to to […]
The See-Saw Of Life
Those of us who work with kids, musically or otherwise, know what it’s like to be on the upside of the see-saw. We try to stay on the down side, to stay in control of things, but sometimes working with kids, we don’t always get what we expect! We’re constantly reminded that we’re not really in charge. […]