Teach Kids About Advertising

Posted on April 29, 2010 at 3:57 pm

The Federal Trade Commission has a terrific new online game for kids that will teach them to understand the difference between someone trying to tell them something and someone trying to sell them something. It’s called Admongo.
The FTC’s message to parents:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, has created the Admongo campaign to help teach kids about advertising. The campaign has four parts:

* a game-based website at Admongo.gov;
* sample ads that can be used in the classroom;
* a free curriculum for use in the 5th and 6th grades, developed with Scholastic, Inc. and
* teacher training videos.

Together, these tools can help teach kids basic ad literacy skills.

As a parent, you can be a valuable partner in this campaign to help equip your kids with the critical thinking skills they need to be smarter consumers. With your help, kids can learn to ask three key “critical thinking” questions when they encounter advertising:

* Who’s responsible for the ad?
* What is the ad actually saying?
* What does it want you to buy, do, or think?

By applying the information they learn through this campaign, your kids will be able to recognize ads, understand them, and make smarter decisions as they navigate the commercial world.

The site also has resources for teachers to help them include media literacy in the curriculum.
The game is not enough to teach kids the difference between genuine opinion and advertising, but if it inspires conversations with parents that are reinforced throughout the week as we model our own responses to the messages in the media, that will remind not only kids but the rest of the family of how insidious these messages can be.
Many thanks to Pat Goslee for showing me this site.

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Secrets of the Mountain

Posted on April 16, 2010 at 8:00 am

Family movie night returns to NBC with Secrets of the Mountain, about an adventure that brings a family together in a search for hidden treasure, starring Barry Bostwick and Paige Turco.

Somewhere between the demands of her career, her ex’s wedding and her kids’ busy schedules, Dana James feels her tight-knit family starting to unravel. An unexpected offer to purchase her family’s mountain property sets up a weekend road trip. But when they arrive, they quickly learn that the mountain is much more than it seems. An ancient secret and a treacherous quest will test the family like never before. It’s an edge-of-the seat thriller that reminds us that when times are tough, families don’t run away from problems — they run back to each other.

Secrets of the Mountain

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For the Whole Family Television

More on Red-Band Trailers

Posted on March 29, 2010 at 9:50 am

Brooks Barnes writes in today’s New York Times about the increased accessibility of “red-band” trailers, movie previews that contain R-rated material.

Over the last two years, movie marketers have flooded the Web with R-rated video ads known as “red band” trailers. While most trailers are approved for broad audiences, the red-band variety typically features profanity, nudity or other material deemed inappropriate for children….he Web has proved extremely hospitable to them despite a difficult-to-enforce industry rule that restricts their release to sites that use age-verification tests.

Barnes describes what the MySpace executives call an “anomaly,” which made the controversial “Kick-Ass” trailer available without any age verification to ensure that it was only being seen by viewers 17 and older. John Phillips, chief executive of Aristotle, a maker of age verification technology, calls the MySpace security system “a ‘total joke,’ a ‘train wreck’ and a ‘continued embarrassment.'” MySpace counters that Aristotle’s system is also easy to fool. All of which means that the challenge for parents in protecting children from R-rated trailers with nudity, drug use, an 11-year-old shooting someone in the face and using extremely crude language and more is a little tougher — and even more important.

Ask Amy’s Recommendation

Posted on March 17, 2010 at 11:46 am

I am thrilled and honored to be mentioned in today’s Ask Amy column. A parent wrote in about 9 and 10 year olds who had seen the very R-rated “The Hangover” multiple times. Amy Dickenson wisely suggested an honest and thoughtful response:

This presents a “teachable moment” for your kids and their friends. When other kids mention that they’ve been allowed to see or do something you don’t allow in your family, you can say, “Well, that’s an R-rated movie. R-rated means it’s really for grown-ups, not kids.”

I agree with you that “The Hangover” is highly inappropriate for children. I don’t know why parents aren’t more careful with the media their children consume, but your primary interest should be toward creating and maintaining the ethic and atmosphere in your own home. Nell Minow (“The Movie Mom”) is my favorite arbiter of what media are appropriate for kids. Her television and movie reviews can be found on blog.beliefnet.com/moviemom.

I agree with Amy that one of the most important lessons a parent can teach is that “everybody else is doing it” never works. Kids may struggle with limits — it is part of the job description for anyone who is in the process of growing up. But they respect our efforts to keep them safe. This “teachable moment” shows them more than what R-rated means. It shows them how we as adults make choices with integrity.

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Media Appearances Parenting

Baby Week on Discovery Channel

Posted on February 19, 2010 at 8:00 am

You think Shark Week is scary? Try Baby Week, beginning March 1 on the Discovery Health Channel. Families take big risks, some planned, some unexpected, to undergo life’s biggest adventure — raising happy, healthy children.
The schedule includes four all-new specials airing nightly through Thursday, March 4, from high-risk pregnancies to postpartum depression and unorthodox parenting styles. The channel is also sponsoring a he “Cutest Baby Face-Off” bracket game, which visitors can play by submitting photos of their own babies.
Online at DiscoveryHealth.com, visitors will have access to a robust resource guide on post partum depression (PPD,) including expert advice on topics like how to choose a therapist and how to cope with a family member suffering from PPD. In addition, the site will feature tips on how to get your body back after giving birth, as well as quizzes on a variety of pregnancy and parenting topics and exclusive webisodes.

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Television