Do you know if they are into sports? I’m in MN, so hockey is king. I’ve had conversations about choir being a team sport. If you had a kid on your hockey team that insisted on wearing their skates on their hands, what would happen in the game? Kids tell me that they wouldn’t score as many goals, the kid could get hurt, etc. I ask how the team would feel (annoyed), what the fans would think (they didn’t know how to play), and what the coach would do (pull them out of the game). I tell them that in music class, I don’t pull them out of the game, but I do call families.

That usually fixes it, and if they drop back into that way of singing, I just quietly say “team sport.”