One evening last week as we prayed at bedtime, Elliot said to me, “I think ‘We’re all in this together’ should be the theme song for this transition.”
The next morning as Callum snuggled into bed with me, he whispered, “What about ‘Livin’ on a prayer’ for the transition, Mama?” As we live between worlds, it feels like we’re constantly “halfway there”.
I don’t know where they got the idea that we need a family theme song, but we took the idea and ran with it to create a transition playlist. Several ‘Daniel Tiger’ songs feature on it. Aimed at preschoolers about their big feelings, there are lessons here for bigger people as well, like ‘It’s OK to feel sad sometimes’.
The boys wanted some ‘Australia songs’ on there as well, if only because they think it’s funny to watch me cry!
And one more from High School Musical. Having given attention to the sadness and the messiness, we also leave space for hope, that, ‘This could be the start of something new.’
I expect we will keep adding to it.
Categories: Written by Tamie
Tamie Davis
Tamie Davis is an Aussie living in Tanzania, writing at meetjesusatuni.com.
Meet Jesus at uni 
Love this. We don’t necessarily have such big obvious changes as a while family, but we do have faced some before and there are some coming. Music is really big for all of us individually, and as my kids have the age gap they do, I’ve spent a long time following kids’ music and how some of it is just fantastic for exactly this. Daniel Tiger has been great for very specific things when really young.
I would recommend the Teeny Tiny Stevies for an excellent Aussie band that has some very enjoyable music, (happens to be a women duo, which feels like an extra positive for me), and very singable snippets of good lessons. Both my kids will still sing “I’m the boss of my own body”, and their song about peeing in the toilet became a bit of an anthem in that era of our life.
Even the Wiggles have put out more specific songs too, which can useful.
Of course as your lovely kids have shown, the music doesn’t have to be specific to a purpose to be insightful and inspiring. I have getting ready, mood boost, concentration and house cleaning playlists like I’m sure most people do. John has his too, very different in sound.
Hearing my girls’ favourite songs gives such a great insight into their personalities. Joey went through years of preferring a very distinctly positive, fighting type of song with prominent women’s vocals, like Fight Song, Roar, Girl On Fire and more. Still loves a good electronic song, and we have enjoyed Celestial (I think that’s it? It’s everywhere.) oh and movie songs. Ultraluminary was on repeat for while. As well as the Encanto soundtrack- Under Pressure was Charli’s nonstop favourite for months.
I’m loving the family transitions song or soundtrack idea and I’m going to suggest we do this for the changes happening as our kids move to starting primary and high school.
I adore the choices Elliott and Callum have made, and as their choices are organic and spontaneous, my feeling is they’ll get more encouragement and meaning out them than if the idea was prescribed.
From what I can tell of both Joey’s and Charli’s peers, kids here really take music not just from pop radio, but also tv and increasingly, online gaming and even social media and video apps. So even though our kids don’t use TikTok, for example, the songs used become popular around them and then we listen to them to figure out if it’s a good idea to play it a lot.
Sending lots of love to all camp David, and you’re all in our prayers. Thank you for being so generous in sharing these years with us.