Analysis

Music has been around since the beginning of time. Many artists express themselves by writing songs to portray emotions, tell their life stories, and their own experiences The human mind sees and connects with different melodies of the songs with many of your own senses and feelings. Everyone feels the same emotions even though people are all different and don't deal with situations the same. In Rodney Atkins song, "Watching You" it shows you the real meaning of having a kid and how your child views your actions. You lay their foundation and they strive to do everything the same.
Children are very susceptible to new ideas and views on everything, depending on who they spend their time with. As a young four year old boy in this case, he wants to do everything the same as his father does, good and bad, never wanting to disappoint. Rodney Atkins puts this into view for his listeners in his very first verse. "Well, then my four year old said a four letter word. It started with “S” and I was concerned. So I said, “Son, now where’d you learn to talk like that?” and the chorus proceeds by his son saying "I’ve been watching you, dad ain’t that cool? I’m your buckaroo, I wanna be like you." This is hard for Rodney due to reasons, such as his child has now learned a curse word just because he was not careful about what he said around his son. This can make the father look as though he's not be doing his fatherly duties right if his child is walking around day to day using curse words at four years of age. It concerns a father when a child is picking up on their bad behavior and recreating it.
Everything that Rodney says and does, his son will try to mimic the behavior because Rodney is looked at as the father figure. Being a father figure can have its pros and cons, but mostly pros. Though the children don't always focus and pick up on the negatives. Sometimes their best habits are picked up from their fathers. "He crawled out of bed and he got down on his knees. He closed his little eyes, folded his little hands, Spoke to God like he was talkin’ to a friend." This surprised Rodney because he didn't understand that his son was praying, never the less how he had even picked that habit up. In fact his son was just recreating the scene he saw in the barn, exactly as his dad had done it the day before. His son saw it as him literally talking to an imaginary friend. So, by recreating this situation he watched Rodney do in the barn, the son was imitating  trying to be just like his father, as any son would do.
"With tears in my eyes I wrapped him in a hug. Said, “My little bear is growin’ up.” And he said, “But when I’m big I’ll still know what to do.” Rodney became very emotional when realizing that all his son wanted to do was be just like him. When you have someone striding to be like you, it gives you a different kind of feeling then anything else in the world, especially your little boy. Rodney says that his son is growing up and the sons responds saying "when he's big, he'll still know what to do." This is showing you that his son has learned everything from Rodney that he will need to know. He always has Rodney to look up too. Rodney's son will never forget the important things he learned by just hanging around with his father.
Rodney Atkins learned through his son that children are always listening, analyzing and imitating your every move as a parent figure. They look up to you for guidance. You are their baseline teacher. Not everything you show them will be the right thing, but that is where they get to learn right from wrong which is a very important concept for children. Rodney's son showed this well by listening to the curse word, analyzing his father praying, and imitating all of Rodney's  actions, so he'll know just what to do.