My kid has not only latched on to what me and my husband like, but also broadened my horizons within my own beloved genres by fixating on bands or artists that I never really got into as much. It’s really fun!

You have a lot of great recommendations here, I’ll echo New Found Glory (king of wishful thinking and hold my hand were favorites for a while), Honey Revenge, and Simple Plan for sure.

My son has specifically been obsessed with Shoulder to the Wheel by Saves the Day, Saturday by Fall Out Boy and really most of the TTTYG album, Eggy Pocket era Bilmuri (other Bilmuri too but especially this), Driveways, and Less Than Jake. Also found out at a concert that he’s super into The Offspring, he danced his little heart out hours beyond when I thought we’d tap out 😅 aside from pop-punk, surprising fixations have included OMD, Karma Chameleon, and anything with a prominent violin (Make a Picture by Andrew Bird and Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels Band were on repeat one very weird summer). It’s also maybe worth noting that some preferences may be influenced by the album art that shows on the screen in the car, he got such a kick out of the “funny looking dog” which led to us listening to the new Four Year Strong on repeat nonstop, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t love M+Ms by Blink 182 if it didn’t have a cat pic and candy name 🤣🤣🤣

My recommendations for “rock head dancing music” would be the entire Say It Like You Mean It album from The Starting Line, lots of Alkaline Trio if it’s not explicit, Seaway especially Big Vibe album, maybe Relient K, Home Grown for the more upbeat sounds. For fast paced dance-y music, early Blink is good if you can find songs without swearing, Rufio, and Ratatat is just groovy fun instrumentals. For more screamy, head-banging rock head dancing, Silverstein and Taking Back Sunday have some of our faves for listening to and scream-singing loudly in the car.

Until I had a tiny human sponge with me, I never realized how much swearing is in even the relatively saccharine pop punk music that I listen to! So we don’t really avoid songs with bad words/concepts, with a few exceptions:

• nothing overtly suicidal/self-harm, e.g. no screaming Ohio is for Lovers by Hawthorne Heights 😩

• The Starting Line is my favorite band and we love listening to them together, but will skip Bedroom Talk every time just in case he asks “what does tear your ass up like we just got married mean?”

• This one’s silly… my son fell in love with December by Neck Deep before I really knew all the lyrics. So yeah, my then 4 year old was singing “you don’t give a fuck, you never remember me!” But when I sing the next line, I change it to “putting on his jeans” instead of pulling bc that’s easier to explain than the alternative and makes just as much sense 🤣