Rhymetime is an activity you do together. Each week your voice and your child’s voice join the greater sound that we make as a group, whether you are singing, laughing, blowing your nose or yawning. But some people feel very self-conscious about their singing and they tell me that they really do have a ‘bad voice’, and that their attempts at karaoke have always sounded like a donkey in pain.
My answer? Do it anyway. There’s a place for donkeys’ voices alongside those of angels and mortals! Most importantly, just doing it can help improve your voice especially when you are surrounded by other people all singing the tune. Singing out of tune is only extremely rarely caused by a physiological problem (if you are human, you have all the vocal chords you need) and can be because you are too nervous to listen and really hear the note. Have a cuddle with your little one, let yourself absorb the tune, and you find that slowly your singing will improve.
Don’t forget, too, that at Rhymetime everyone is so focussed on their child that it’s unlikely that they’ll care how you sound. They’re negotiating peace treaties with the child next to them, avoiding over-enthusiastic bouncing and making sure no-one runs out of the door, not judging The Voice.
After all, if your child could articulate it, they would tell you that they’re not bothered by my voice, or anyone else’s in the group, but that they want YOU to sing. They can, and do, recognise and prefer their parents’ voices over anyone else’s. So they really don’t care how you sound, they just want you to sing.
Sing in the shower. Sing when you’re emptying the dishwasher. Sing when you’re wiping poo off bottoms. Just sing!
‘When you first sang Ben’s name in the hello song,’ Joanna confided, ‘I thought I was going to cry!’
