I was also discouraged from singing when I was in grade school, even though I would often sing at the top of my lumgs at home. When I sang in chorus some nasty little girls would snigger and point when a bad note was hit, even if it wasn't me! Then, as a teen, my mother's friend heard some of us girls singing and suggested we open a coffee house, and kindly added I could serve the coffee! Well, it took my husband 20 years to get me to sing in front of him because of all that, and now people pay us to sing. So freakin' there!

Young people hesitate to sing because they don't want to be uncool in front of their peers. The "industry" standard (yeah, right) has them believing if they don't have 6 squating scantily clad dancers behind them, and vocal augmentation they ain't cool.