Don't practice Black Magic (without even realizing it)

Sometimes we as adults practice what I call black magic and cast a spell or a curse on a child without even realizing it.

For example, when we say to a child when they are singing..."hey stop that, your voice sounds like a frog croaking", we think that we are making a joke and the child and us may laugh it off, but some real damage may have been done. The child goes away thinking that his voice sounds like a frog. Some children then become fearful about singing even if they actually have an inherent talent for singing.

Or with a child who has a natural rhythmic ability and who likes to play rhythms on the dining table. Instead of saying. "stop being so annoying...if I catch you making noise on the dining table again, I'm going to spank you!" We could just as easily say to the child, "wow...you really know how to play nice music with your hands, but maybe we can do that together later when everyone has left the dinner table ok?" Or, some kind and gentle words to that effect.

Or sometimes some people say to their child, "if you don't stop misbehaving, I will call the Indian man (or the Chinese man or whatever man) to come and catch you!"

Again we cast the spell of racism on this child who will then grow up with an unexplained bias against a particular race.

To me, when we say these kind of things to children, we are in fact practicing black magic and casting a spell or a curse on them.

When I was a kid, some of my relatives said things like this to me....told me that I sound like a frog when I sang. Right until my early 30s, I believed that and I would be so shy about singing, even though I loved doing it. I loved hearing my sister Claressa sing and wished that I could do it too.

Then in my mid 30s, nervous as hell and still thinking that my voice sounded like a frog, I didn't care...I started singing on my gigs. People started asking me to sing more and told me that they liked the way I delivered a song. All through the years after that, I would continue singing and continued disbelieving or half-believing the nice compliments people gave me.

Then after awhile, my singing become more and more accepted to a point where I started to feel more confident and started enjoying singing more and more.

But still, there was this small voice in my head which said "frog!"

Then one day in 2003 I sang at a concert at the Esplanade on a show which included Greg Fishman, Paulinho Garcia, Eldee Young and Grammy nominated singer/pianist Judy Roberts from Chicago.

Judy went back to the U.S. and wrote a story about the concert in the Chicago Jazz magazine. She said, "Jeremy has an appealing and and expressive voice....you don't expect such a technically dazzling pianist to have such an intimate and wistful vocal sound."

Greg Fishman was quoted in the article as saying, "Jeremy is a consistently excellent vocalist."

And just like that, once and for all, because of what Judy and Greg said, the curse was broken.

Sure I don't think that I am some amazing singer or that my singing is anywhere as decent as my piano playing. But I now do not believe that I sound like a frog when I sing and I feel so nice and free when I do it.

So be careful when you make what you think are innocent jokes to children. Children are innocent and very impressionable and they believe what their parents, aunties and uncles and other caregivers say.

Say things to children which bless them and not things which will curse them. And always remind yourself not to perform "black magic" on anyone, especially children.