subject: Finding Acceptable Content For Kids [print this page] Media creates a lot of opportunities for learning and gaining awareness of the world. It also presents a remarkable challenge for parents, who have to shield their children from all the negative influences that run rampant in the media universe. This is especially important for girls, who are the target of destructive and degrading ideals. While there are plenty of free girl games online, as well as interesting learning adventures and videos, parents have to take the time to find them.
When todays parents were children themselves, media was much simpler. Twenty years ago media came to most people mainly through the television and radio. Today, the number of conduits for media have multiplied, from cell phones to computers to our kids' electronic toys. Most of the content delivered by those myriad devices is designed to distract us, not to enrich our lives.
In many ways smartphones are wonderful devices, but they're a little like swords: useful in one way and dangerous in another. While they provide all kinds of useful capabilities wherever we go, they also play an insidious role, allowing media to creep into every moment of our lives, replacing the creative act of doodling with the receptive, uncreative act of phone-fiddling.
Generally, kids misbehave because they are testing boundaries, because they need something, or because they are trying to get our attention. Certainly, we can't become slaves to our kids' need for attention or else they will become spoiled and go through their lives trying desperately to get an impersonal world to shower down the same level of attention on them that their parents did. Especially for a girl, that's a recipe for disaster.
However, any time a child misbehaves there is an important developmental process going on behind the scenes. Perhaps he will get the attention or instruction he's looking for. If he doesn't, then he will learn that misbehavior doesn't get him what he wants. The fit of screaming and yelling and kicking the floor might be hard for a parent to endure, but on the other side of it he will figure out how to entertain himself, which is an important life skill. When a parent uses media to distract a misbehaving child, that process is aborted.
Still, every kid in the developed world is going to be exposed to media to some extent, since it has become an omnipresent feature of our lives. For the most part kids' content has some educational element, but to sell it has to entertain. As a result, any time a decision has to be made between entertainment value and educational quality, you can pretty much be assured that the production team is going to choose entertainment.
And when it comes to content aimed specifically at girls, it seems that much of the content contains a twisted worldview that is both coddling of and degrading to women. Instilling that view in young, impressionable girls can be highly destructive.
There are numerous sources for quality content on the Internet. There are educational films, opportunities for discovery, and free online girl games, but parents can't just turn the content filters on and let their kids fend for themselves. They need to take an active role in finding content that will benefit their kids.
by: jertrihayes
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