Do you know how to sing?

This weekend me and my family went out for a walk to the park, it wasn’t raining, and the weather was ok! It was so beautiful the day, and the chat was starting to be good…

We were talking about creativity, and we have a private joke at home, that we never say that we don’t know how to sing, even if we know we couldn’t follow a career as singers!!This is coming from Sir Ken Robinson theory and the work he has done on creativity and education, you can listen to him in his amazing Ted Talk, Do schools kill creativity?

This question triggers the difference between a child in Pre-K, who would answer singing at their best quality and very proudly their favorite song, and the adults or even children after Pre-K, would say No!!!… they start to be ashamed as they standards of who knows how to sing is completely different, afraid of being judged.

This is so interesting, and honestly I don’t know how to do it with my children, building their mind free of judgements like this one. I am feeling it is out of my control… and perhaps it isn’t all bad, otherwise my son would go to school everyday in his pajama, as it is more comfy.

We had fun in the park, when I asked the question out of surprise to my son, he still recognized the question and said yes, but he was embarrassed to sing…

My husband as a grown up, recognizing the question he dared to said yes, and just sang!!! Hahaha!!! I am not sure if he would be selected to the Voice… 🙂

I am trying to unlock the free mindset,  unblock the judgement feeling, but even doing in family is not easy, and we are doing this all the time!

The message is to follow Sir Ken Robinson, be aware how much how we are assuming, and blocking ourselves even without being told what does that mean the question “Do you know how to sing?”. Everybody knows how to sing… if you say if I know how to sing like Mariah Carrey, this become a different story!

But shame, stereotypes, afraid of being judged are the most common feelings that block us daring to do something original and standing out!

So next time someone asks you “Do you know how to sing”, just say yes!

Thank you

Anna Jo