Guidelines for Parents: Is My Child Old Enough for This Movie?

Posted on January 6, 2016 at 3:46 pm

Betsy Bozdech of Common Sense Media gives Cricket’s Circle some tips on determining whether your child is old enough to understand and appreciate a movie.

The most important factors to keep in mind: (1) Do your homework — just because a movie is rated PG or because you vaguely remember seeing it as a kid or because it is animated or their friends have seen it does not mean it is right for your child. (2) Know your child — just because your other child was fine with it at this age does not mean that this one will be. Remember that sometimes the greatest gift you can give your child is cover so they don’t have to be the ones to tell their friends they think it’s too scary.

Carolyn Hax on the Toughest Media Question Parents Face

Posted on October 6, 2015 at 10:54 am

I am a huge fan of advice columnist Carolyn Hax, whose compassionate and insightful responses are always illuminating and often very funny. And I love the witty meta-commentary in the accompanying illustrations from Nick Galifianakis. Today, Hax was asked the question I am most often asked by parents, who anguish about how to protect their children from media they consider inappropriate when they are away from home. I have spoken to parents whose young children have been exposed to PG-13 and even R-rated films on sleepovers.

This particular letter-writer is by the standards of most American families, pretty conservative. She allows her 10-year-old only limited access to films and only those rated G. His friend, a neighbor, has mentioned (not shown her son, just discussed) films like “Groundhog Day” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” She is considering not allowing her son to play with this boy anymore.

Carolyn answers:

ou can have a warm and sympathetic conversation with her to say that you allow only G-rated movies in your house and that when your son is at her house, you’d appreciate his not watching PGs or above.

Aaaaand that’s it.

What you can’t do is censor perfectly normal conversations between perfectly normal kids, except for language or R-rated material.

Well, you can, but I advise against it, because you definitely can’t provide your kids with a world scrubbed to your standards, not without locking them in and unplugging all media, which you sound suspiciously close to doing, and I beg you not to do. Kids have to learn to live in their world, and that process doesn’t start when they’re 17. It starts when they’re falling on their diapered butts.

I do sympathize with your frustration when a peer pokes holes in your son’s protective shield. But even if you managed to banish this source of amicable corruption, there’d be another — at school, on the playground or, my personal favorite, the profane, drunken fan in Row 12.

Age 10 is a fine time to start teaching instead of just blocking. What are your reasons for finding X too mature for your son? Start forming those ideas into explanations for him. You can protect kids for only so long; eventually the education you instilled in them has to take over. Right?

I was going to end here, but this really bugs me. You’d rather teach your son it’s okay to shun someone — for reasons that are barely the kid’s fault — than to have your boy hear a few naughty words?

Every parent has to walk that fine line between being protective and smothering. I’ve been in a post office with my children and had one of them ask me what “pornography” was because he read it on a sign about someone who was wanted by the FBI. In a grocery store, that same child asked me what “raped” meant because he read it in a newspaper headline. We were not as protective as this letter-writer but we were stricter than most of the parents of our children’s friends. That meant that our children heard from their friends about what was in some of the movies I did not let them see instead of seeing them with me so I could gauge their response and give them my perspective. And once in a while I let them see something I was not comfortable with because they asked to see it in what seemed to me to be a sensible manner. There’s no easy answer to this one but pretending that you can keep them inside a G-rated world is not wise or fair.

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What Screen Time Does to Developing Brains

Posted on September 2, 2015 at 3:55 pm

As kids go back to school, it’s a good time to establish some rules about screen time. My recommended rules are below. This is increasingly important as kids are surrounded by screens everywhere — and by adults who themselves have a problem staying away from their own phones and tablets. Psychology Today has a sobering article on the impact of electronic media on kids, making them “angry, depressed, and unmotivated” and causing attention problems. The author, Victoria Dunkley, explores these issues in more depth in her book, Reset Your Child’s Brain: A Four-Week Plan to End Meltdowns, Raise Grades, and Boost Social Skills by Reversing the Effects of Electronic Screen-Time.

The Movie Mom’s recommended rules for families:

Screen time is a treat, not a right. It’s a good idea to make sure that it comes only after homework, chores, other kinds of play, and family time. Make sure there is some quiet time each day as well. The spirit is nourished by silence. All too often, we try to drown out our unsettled or lonely feelings in noise, instead of allowing them to resolve themselves. Just as important, the best and most meaningful family communication flourishes only in quiet.Plan with your child what he or she is going to watch. You might say something like, “We should have time for one hour of television today” or “Let’s pick something to watch on Sunday afternoon.” Then look at choices together or look through a movie guide to see the options and pick which ones you think are worthwhile. Try to avoid the “let’s see if there’s anything to watch” channel surf, which has a tendency to be numbing rather than engaging or relaxing. Distract the kids with crayons, books, or toys; not screens and digital media. Children spend more time with television and other media than they do in school or with their families — a full workweek of 35 hours a week or more. Most educators think that anything over two hours at that age takes too much time away from the important “work” of playing, learning to interact with others, learning to amuse themselves, and developing their imaginations.
Turn the devices off when the program is over, unless there is something else you planned to watch on next. This discourages the idea that we “watch screens” instead of watching particular programs.
Watch with the kids whenever possible, and comment on what you see. Encourage them to comment, too. “What do you think he will do next?” “She looks sad. I think they hurt her feelings.” “He’s having a hard time feeling good about himself, isn’t he?” “If you were that kid, what would you do?” “If someone said that to you, how would you feel?”
Look for positive role models for girls. Children’s shows produced for commercial networks tend to ignore girls. Producers are asked for shows with “boy appeal,” because the numbers show that girls will watch shows produced for boys, but boys won’t watch shows produced for girls. There is a lot of what I call “the Smurfette syndrome,” a reference to the cartoon show that features 99 highly varied male characters and one girl character, whose sole and defining characteristic was that she was a female. Whether you have daughters or sons, help them to be sensitive to these concerns, asking questions like, “Do you think it’s fair that there are no girls on that team?” “How come only the boys get to go on that adventure?” and commenting positively on good female role models: “She’s brave!” “That’s what I call persistence!”
Be alert for issues of race, religion, ethnicity, and class. The media tends to feature Dick and Jane, Ozzie and Harriet suburban families, where Dad works and Mom stays home and does housework and everyone is white and vaguely Christian. Non-whites are often portrayed condescendingly or stereotypically. Make sure your children know that there are many different kinds of families, races, and religions, and many different kinds of homes. Make an effort to be sure they see diverse families in what they watch.
Set a good example. Don’t let the kids see you veg out in front of devices, aimlessly surfing. Don’t tell them not to talk to you so you can watch some sitcom. Do let them see you reading, and enjoying what you read.
Don’t ever let anyone — parent, grandparent, sibling or friend — tell a child that a program or movie he or she wants to watch is “too babyish.” Respect children’s interest and affection for the shows they like, and their need to return to old comforts.
Make sure that children understand the difference between programs and commercials. Saturday morning cartoon commercials are particularly troublesome, with a sort of hip-hop precocity that shows grade-school kids acting like hyperactive mini-teenagers.
If you find that you have made a mistake and taken your children to a film that you find inappropriate, leave the theater. You can get your money back. And you communicate an important lesson to your children about your commitment to protecting them. The same is true, of course, for any media brought into the home.
Do not be shy about setting television limits with babysitters, friends’ parents, or grandparents. Never leave your children with anyone without being clear about your rules.
Be careful with tie-ins, especially cartoons based on movie characters. Just because a Saturday morning cartoon like “Spider-Man” or some fast food gizmo is geared for children does not mean that the associated movie is appropriate for them as well.
Use movies as a starting point for developing interests. Go to the library to check out a book or video relating to what you have seen. Read the newspaper for stories relating to what you have seen. Make a craft project inspired by the show. (“Can you draw Mickey carrying the buckets of water?” “Let’s try to find where Indiana Jones went on a map.”)
When in doubt, turn it off. Remember that there is no reason to watch any device unless you genuinely feel it is the best use of your child’s time.
Every month or so, try a “screen diet” day without any devices at all, and use the extra time for special family activities.
When an older sibling is watching media that is not appropriate for a younger child, make sure the younger child has an appealing alternative. It’s a good time for you to do something special together, even if it is just sorting laundry or setting the table.
Establish strict limits on viewing, but try not to use limits as a punishment, unless the offense relates to media itself (watching without permission, for example) or time management (“If you don’t finish cleaning up by 3:00, you won’t have time to watch the movie.”) This reinforces the message that we make decisions about media based only on the merits of the shows.
Let them know why you like (or don’t like) particular shows. Try not to say that something is “too old” for them, as this will just make them more interested in seeing what it is about. Sometimes it works better to say (truthfully) that it is “too stupid.” Compare it to food; some shows are like healthful food, some are like candy, some are like poison. Model good media behavior yourself. Don’t keep it on as background noise. Don’t watch anything you don’t want them to see if they are around (you’d be amazed — and appalled — at what a three-year-old can pick up).
No devices in a child’s bedroom, unless he or she is sick in bed. It is not only isolating, but it makes establishing limits impossible.
Never, never, never have media on during family meals. That is your most precious time to share the day’s experiences, challenges, and thoughts, and to let children know how important they are to you. The same goes for rides in the car, minivan, or RV.
Watch what you enjoy and enjoy what you watch together. Make these among your most precious family connections and memories.

Reading to Children Boosts Their Brains

Posted on August 20, 2015 at 11:18 am

The New York Times reports:

This month, the journal Pediatrics published a study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study brain activity in 3-to 5-year-old children as they listened to age-appropriate stories. The researchers found differences in brain activation according to how much the children had been read to at home.

Children whose parents reported more reading at home and more books in the home showed significantly greater activation of brain areas in a region of the left hemisphere called the parietal-temporal-occipital association cortex. This brain area is “a watershed region, all about multisensory integration, integrating sound and then visual stimulation,” said the lead author, Dr. John S. Hutton, a clinical research fellow at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

We read aloud to our children every night until they went to high school and those are among our sweetest memories and favorite family references. Instead of handing your kids an iPad, try reading to them. It is one of the best ways to strengthen connections, and, as this study shows, it nourishes their brain activity. Those of us who are lucky enough to have been read to and to have read to others did not need the study to tell us that.

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When Boredom Beats Mental Busywork

Posted on March 4, 2015 at 8:00 am

I love this tribute to boredom on car trips with children. I well remember being in the back seat with my sisters, alternating games of GHOST and Botticelli with highway bingo and, yes, arguing with each other about who had to ride in the middle. What will today’s children remember about family car trips? Watching “Frozen” for the 17th time? Playing video games? Car trips can be tedious without media, but they can be the most precious family bonding time you will ever have. And there is no greater gift you can give a child than the ability to be present in the world and find ways to use his or her imagination for entertainment. And it is also good for them to learn that we watch movies to engage our minds, hearts, and spirits, not as a distraction from whatever is going on around us.

Antonia Malchick writes about her family’s device-free drive:

Even I was surprised by how well they adapted to the screen-free hours in the car. John took to drawing intricate pictures with hilarious narrative explanations. Alex tried to copy him, and then got bored and threw her stuffed dogs at him. He threw his stuffed Angry Birds back. They giggled and fought and stared out the windows a lot. And it wasn’t just them_I was noticeably more relaxed and calmer without constant access to Facebook; FOMO (“fear of missing out”) faded away and I got to pay attention to everything else I’d been missing out on.

South Dakota was hot, but it also has the Badlands, which they’ll remember instead of Caillou; they know that Illinois is where we passed wind farms and corn farms, not where they were playing Minecraft; that Billings, Montana, stinks of oil refinery and has approximately a million coal trains but it was also where_we only saw it because we were paying attention — we passed a train of open freight cars, each carrying a massive windmill blade.

Instead of memories of a crazy long car trip where they escaped the dullness in videos and games, they’ll have memories of a crazy long car trip where they formed a more complex relationship with each other and with me. They got a sense of the country, its vastness and variety, its future and past, and a sense of themselves at the same time, what their minds are capable of when allowed to roam in the deceptive bleakness of boredom. The perfect road trip.