Screen-Free Week April 18-24

Posted on April 16, 2011 at 3:45 pm

It used to be called TV-Turnoff Week but that was so 1990’s. Now it’s Screen-Free Week — one week for families to turn off the screens and reconnect with old-fashioned in-person interaction, to look each other in the eyes, spend time outside, cook together, read books on paper, daydream, play board games and cards, and, perhaps most important, go for more than 20 seconds without being interrupted by buzzing, beeping, ring-tones, or tweets. It’s also a chance to participate in the many Screen-Free Week events organized around the country. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has a fact sheet for kids and resources for parents and teachers, including an excellent Live Outside the Box Toolkit from Seattle and King County. Screen-Free Week is endorsed by a wide range of educators and health professionals including the American Medical Association, the National Education Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

I was disappointed to see Double X blogger KJ Dell’Antonia explain why she and her family will not be observing Screen-Free Week, apparently because it is inconvenient. Without television as a soporofic,

my four children will be running wild around me, invariably losing their generally excellent ability to self-entertain and peacefully interact at approximately 5:00 daily, precisely the moment when I’m desperately trying to finish up the last bits of work for the day and start dinner—without once resorting to the highly addictive, all-child-inclusive form of entertainment that is Phineas and Ferb.

She doesn’t try to suggest that there is anything beneficial to her children in her decision. It is Dell’Antonia who wants to continue to rely on television to keep her children quiet and does not even want to take one week to try to teach them that they have other alternatives — like reading a book, drawing a picture, playing a game, or setting the table. She has to admit, “I support the idea of a “screen-free week,” but I support it as a family project, not a top-down imposition of a temporary new screen rule.” The entire idea of Screen-Free Week is as a family project. I am certain that children will be so happy to have their parents put down their Blackberries that they will be more than willing to miss another rerun of Phineas and Ferb and that it is well worth it for everyone to learn that media is not the only way to spend quiet time.

Don’t Play With Bruno; Bruno is a Dweeb

Posted on March 13, 2011 at 3:13 pm

I was delighted to find this great version of one of my favorite Tom Chapin songs, performed by Steve Charney — very timely with the increased sensitivity to issues of bullying and mean behavior in schools, and a great way to start a family conversation about how all of us can find ways to be kinder and more respectful.

Dateline on Bullying: ‘My Kids Would Never….Bully’

Posted on March 4, 2011 at 8:56 am

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thanks to commenter Barbara Gibson for suggesting that I recommend this important Dateline episode about teen bullying. Parents get some surprises when they watch as hidden cameras reveal their children reacting to different bullying situations they think are really happening. Even children who know what is right can succumb to peer pressure and the insecurity inherent in adolescence makes teens vulnerable to picking on others to feel superior. This is a good opportunity to watch as a family and start some important conversations.

Dateline NBC – My Kid Would Never … Bully

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Parenting Television

Skins — Another Challenge for Parents of Teens

Posted on January 22, 2011 at 8:00 am

MTV’s latest series is Skins, an American version of a controversial British television show about teenagers and starring teenagers. It was co-created by a teenager, the son of a television writer who was challenged by his father to come up with an idea.
The characters in both the US and UK versions use drugs, have casual and sometimes predatory sex, and engage in a great deal of irresponsible and highly risky behavior. Hank Steuver of the Washington Post wrote:

By and large, “Skins” is a repugnant, irredeemably nihilistic viewing experience for grownups – the very thing for which “off” buttons are made.

For actual teenagers, “Skins” might be something of a vicarious thrill, in which a scheming, savvy twerp named Tony (James Newman) arranges a debauched social life for himself and his other working-class friends, each of whom have their own overblown emotional issues and troubles at home. Imagine a kid with Ferris Bueller’s self-assurance and Eddie Haskell’s duplicity plunked down with his ethnically diverse peers in a den filled with drugs, porn and a stack of unmade “ABC Afterschool Special” scripts with the final scenes (i.e., the saccharine conclusions) torn out.

That is the key point. Some shows try to have it both ways; they display all kinds of bad behavior and justify it with a moral lesson by showing the consequences. These can range from the “very special episodes” that put favorite sitcom characters in the path of danger to movies like “The Hangover,” which let us enjoy the out-of-control behavior of the characters and then let us enjoy even more the pain of coping with the consequences. “Skins” doesn’t seem to care about anything but giving audiences a transgressive thrill. Knowing that the actors really are as young as the characters they portray adds to the shock value — and the appeal.
Parents should know that this series pushes the boundaries already pushed very far by shows like “90210” and “Gossip Girl.” New York Magazine reports that MTV is concerned that it might violate child pornography statutes. Wrigley, GM, and Taco Bell have already pulled out as advertisers. If you are going to give your children permission to watch, I strongly suggest you watch it with them — though it’s hard to say which of you would be most uncomfortable doing so.

Skins

PTC Report on Sexualization of Teenage Girls on Television

Posted on December 15, 2010 at 3:00 pm

The Parents Television Council released a new report today on the portrayal of teenage girls on television.
The report, ??Tinseltown’s New Target: A Study of Teen Female Sexualization on Prime-Time TV, is based on a content analysis of the most popular television shows for viewers ages 12-17 in the 2009-2010 season. “Girls as young as five wanting to be sexy are being robbed of their childhood,” said former model Nicole Clark, whose documentary “Cover Girl Culture” exposes the detrimental influence of media on children’s self-image. She added that she hears parents talk about their fears of sexual predators but they dress their little girls to emphasize their sexuality and allow them to watch unsupervised media “We wonder why America has the highest teen pregnancy rate and teen STD rate of all the developed nations.” It is especially troubling that the influence of these images is apparent on younger and younger children.
Every parent should look at this report and consider carefully how to protect both boys and girls from these media portrayals, how to talk to them to minimize the impact of what they do see, and how to respond to the PTC’s call to action to let broadcasters and advertisers know that this is unacceptable.
The PTC says:
Clearly, there are inherent dangers in having a cultural milieu that accepts and encourages this sexual contradiction of encouraging underage girls to look sexy, yet realizing they know very little about what it means to be sexual.
Of equal concern is the lack of experience teenagers have in making rational and responsible decisions within intimate relationships. For years, scholars have recognized that teens may be particularly vulnerable to media influence. Several studies report the negative impact that frequent exposure to sexualized media images and models of passivity can cause, ranging from eating disorders and depression to sexual risk-taking. There is a chord that is struck with every parent when understanding the devastating impact these sexual images and messages have on the cognitive, emotional, and physical development as well as the self-image of the average young girl well before they reach the stage of exhibiting these more outwardly recognizable disorders. Further, research shows that girls and young women who consume more mainstream media content demonstrate greater acceptance of stereotypes that depict women as sexual objects , and earlier initiation of sexual behaviors.
The impact of teen sexualization in the media is exacerbated by the continual increases in media usage among teens. A recent report revealed that children are spending more time than ever before consuming entertainment media -more than 75 hours a week. These rates indicate that teens are spending nearly twice as much time viewing media than they spend in school and 1/3 more time than they spend sleeping. This increase is due, in large part, to devices that allow children to access media content away from the traditional confines of the television and movie screen.
The report concludes that when underage female characters appear on screen: more sexual content is depicted; the teen girls show next to no negative response to being sexualized; more sexual incidents occur outside of any form of a committed relationship; and there is less accuracy in the TV content rating.
It found:

Underage female characters are shown participating in a higher percentage of sexual depictions compared to adults (47% and 29% respectively).

Only 5% of the underage female characters communicated any form of dislike for being sexualized (excluding scenes depicting healthy sexuality).

Out of all the sexualized female characters depicted in the underage and young adult category for the entire database, 86% were presented as only being of high school age.

Seventy-five percent of shows that included sexualized underage female characters were shows that did not have an “S” descriptor to warn parents about the sexual content.

Based upon a definition established by the American Psychological Association of “healthy” vs. “unhealthy” sexuality, the study findings show that 93% of the sexual incidents involving underage female characters occurred within a context that qualified as “unhealthy.”

The data revealed that 98% of the sexual incidents involving underage female characters occurred outside of any form of a committed relationship.

The data show that 73% of the underage sexualized incidents were presented in a humorous manner or as a punch line to a joke.

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