Happy Screen-Free Week!

Posted on April 30, 2012 at 10:25 am

Nationwide Screen-Free Week begins today through May 6.

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has a list of some of the hundreds of activities planned by Screen-Free Week organizers:

Read Boston has asked 4,000 students in 12 partner schools to take the screen-free pledge! Children who return their tracking logs after break will receive a prize pack with items that promote fun (and learning) without screens.
Screen-Free Kansas City and the Early Years Institute in Long Island have both partnered with local businesses to offer discounted and free fun activities every day of Screen-Free Week!
Unplug and Play in Bozeman, Montana has organized daily events including free admission to the Museum of the Rockies, a Bike Rodeo, and Family Science Night at the Children’s Museum.Portland (Oregon) Parks and Recreation and Kaiser Permanente are offering activities including a tea party for young children, Family Game Night, and Messy Art!
St. John Lutheran Church in Fargo, ND is offering a Screen-Free Fellowship with games, nature activities, invigorating conversations . . . and ice cream!
The children’s department at the North Tonawanda (New York) Library is hosting events every evening including a Scavenger Hunt, a Craft Night, and Plant a Seed for Spring.
First Five Inyo County in Bishop, California is celebrating life outside the box. Families who send a picture of their child 5 or younger doing a screen-free activity win a free toy or game from their treasure chest! The Inland Preschool in Calimesa, CA is hosting a Screen-Free Week Trike-a-Thon.
Oakland Steiner School in Rochester Hills, Michigan is hosting Screen-Free activities all week including a Scavenger Hunt, Table Talk Dinner Game, Play with a Box Day, and a May Day celebration! The Francis Parker Afterschool Program in Chicago is asking parents and teachers to sponsor a student for charity; the longer the student goes screen-free, the more money raised!

CCFC’s List of 101 Screen-Free Activities includes:

Listen to the radio.
Write an article or story.
Paint a picture, a mural, or a room.
Write to the President, your Representative, or your Senators.
Read a book. Read to someone else.
Learn to change the oil or tire on a car. Fix something.
Write a letter to a friend or relative.
Make cookies, bread, or jam and share with a neighbor.

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Talking about Fairy Tales on WAMU

Posted on April 18, 2012 at 11:44 am

Many thanks to the Kojo Nnamdi Show for inviting me on to talk about fairy tales — their enduring popularity and their prevalence in today’s media — with two men whose books I have read and enjoyed, Jack Zipes and Beliefnet’s own Chris Epting. Guest host Rebecca Roberts led a wonderful discussion, now available online via transcript or podcast.

Movies to Help Families Talk About Grief and Loss

Posted on March 21, 2012 at 3:59 pm

I was honored to be quoted in a thoughtful post by Jeanne Davis about using movies to help kids talk about grief and loss.

Movies are as full of loss as they are of love, unspooling the human experience in all its dimensions. They can provide a wonderful springboard for conversation about all manner of emotions — including the complex, confusing, and often isolating feelings associated with the loss of a loved one.

Movies can create a safe space for conversation, especially for families. It may be easier — or more accessible — for children to talk about what little Nemo (Finding Nemo) or Simba (The Lion King) is going through than what they themselves are going through. In fact, they may well not understand what they are going through and what the future holds, and it can be very comforting — and revealing — to talk about the feelings and the journey of a fictional character.

“Movies are a wonderful way to begin a discussion,” says Nell Minow, who begins movie discussions almost every day on her popular Movie Mom blog on Beliefnet.com and has written a guide to family movies. “With children, especially little kids, it gives them an emotional vocabulary. How does this character feel — happy, sad, confused?”

While some might want to protect kids from movies that are “too sad” or “too difficult,” Debra and Nell say movies are a great way to expose kids to the challenges of life, love and loss. While Debra’s work puts her in close touch with children who are already grieving, Nell casts a wider net to all families — and she recommends opening the channels of communication early and often. “Movies are a good gateway to open up difficult topics,” says Nell. “Ideally, you want to get this topic on the table for kids before they’re confronted by a devastating loss.”

The post includes recommended films for young and older children and teens and some thoughtful questions to help families start discussions of sensitive and difficult topics.

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Parenting

Marketing Legos to Boys and Girls

Posted on March 13, 2012 at 8:00 am

Thanks to my friends at the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood for pointing me to this look at the different way Legos are marketed to boys and girls. I love the way the website lets you make your own mash-up.

I understand that children and teenagers can exaggerate gender differences to establish a margin of safety as they attempt to understand the complexities of gender and culture and advertisers and their clients want to appeal to them. But as shown most vividly in the viral video of the little girl who was furious that Toys R Us seemed to think she would only want toys that were pink, marketing this way reinforces a lot of stereotypes that are not appreciated by today’s children.

I like this commentary by CNN’s Mark Joyella:

The new range of girl-targeted Lego toys (by which I mean figures and accessories in addition to the classic blocks that date back decades) features such forward-thinking concepts of what girls want in a set of plastic blocks as a beautician, a pop star and a “social girl.”

I’ll admit all I know about girls is what I’ve learned from my daughter over the last eighteen months since her birth. But the idea of forking over any amount of money for toys that limit her vision to 1950’s stereotypes? C’mon, Lego. You can do way better than that.

As Bloomberg Businessweek’s Brad Weiners reported this week, “now, after four years of research, design and exhaustive testing, Lego believes it has a breakthrough in its Lego “Friends” … a full line of 23 different products backed by $40 million global marketing push. ‘This is the most significant strategic launch we’ve done in a decade,’ says Lego Group Chief Executive Officer Jorgen Vig Knudstorp.”

Four years of research to create a Lego beautician and a “social girl”? Didn’t Barbie pretty much cover that ground sometime before 1960?

These ads give families a good opportunity to talk about how commercials try to trick us into wanting and even thinking we need things and about the importance of asking ourselves who the messages are coming from and what the messages are.

Petition to give “Bully” a PG-13 Rating

Posted on February 28, 2012 at 3:56 pm

“Bully,” which will be released on March 3o, is a powerful and critically important documentary about the tragic consequences of bullying on children and teenagers. It can no longer be dismissed as an inevitable part of growing up or something that children should work out for themselves. This film includes horrifying footage of school bus rides and heartbreaking interviews with children who have been bullied and parents whose children committed suicide after being bullied. It has received an R rating from the MPAA for language used by teenagers in the film. The producers appealed, asking for a PG-13 and lost by one vote. They had a majority, but the rules require a two-thirds vote.

This is another bone-headed decision from the MPAA, which routinely gives PG-13 ratings to feature films with extremely raunchy, violent, and irresponsible content. The appeal board’s decision eliminates the potential for “Bully” to reach a mass national audience of students through screenings at U.S. middle and high schools, where the film could be used as a starting point for discussions with students, parents, and teachers. One school district that had planned to have 40,000 students see the film has had to cancel its plans because of the R rating. It is appalling that a documentary about the real lives of children and teens is considered too “adult” for them to see.

A teenager has gathered more than 75,000 names on a Change.org petition to ask MPAA for a PG-13 rating.