Not Age Appropriate

The parents were travelling with their 4- and 8-year old children. The airline had scheduled an in-flight film entitled Alex Cross, which is rated PG-13. A brief snippet of the Common Sense Media review will tell you why:

“…it’s not just shootouts, but also scenes of torture, a decapitated head, and a pregnant woman killed for pleasure by a villain who takes joy in inflicting pain. Even iffier? In the end, the movie’s message seems to be that even officers of the law sometimes need to take a morally questionable path toward justice.”

When it was clear to the parents that the film was not appropriate for their young children, they requested that the monitors near their seats be retracted (they were the drop-down-from-the-ceiling-kind, not the individual-back-of-the-seat kind). Essentially, they were told that nothing could be done.

While there are no reports of threats or raised voices (apparently the other passengers supported the parents’ request), the captain announced the plane would be diverted to Chicago’s O’Hare airport due to “security concerns.”

From on-screen thriller to real-life scare

Upon landing, an officer of the Chicago police approached the family and escorted them off the plane. The family was interviewed by border control agents, Chicago police, officials from the airline, and even an FBI agent – a situation that, in the end, may have been scarier for the children involved than the film they were watching on the plane.

All’s well that ends well?

Once it was clear that there was no security threat, the family was booked on the next flight to Baltimore. Without getting into the details of who said what and how this situation was (mis-)handled by any of the parties involved, I think there are some serious questions that should be raised.

Should we be implementing standards to protect children from what these parents called “inappropriate cinematic content”? There are rules for what can be shown on television when children are likely to be watching – should similar rules be applied to public spaces? What about commercial services, such as airlines, where parents will have their children with them, but not be able to simply ‘opt out’ as they might in a movie theatre or in their living room?

This incident has caused quite a stir, including the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s petition to get the airline to stop showing PG-13 films on overhead screens.  As a result of this incident, one thing is clear: parents are concerned about what kind of media their children are exposed to.

What do you think?

Watch the trailer (below) or read the review of this film on Common Sense Media and let us know what you think. Should in-flight entertainment be family-friendly? Do you have an experience with your children being exposed to inappropriate media? Post a comment and share your story.

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Fred Rogers, television host, author, songwriter, and puppeteer, reached many millions of children through his television show, not to push sugary breakfast cereals or hock the latest toys, but to communicate a message of caring and compassion to each and every child.

A new message for a new medium

In the 1960s Fred Rogers was concerned about the way children were being served by the medium of television. But instead of denouncing the technology, he saw television as an opportunity to reach huge numbers of kids and deliver a message of kindness. He looked at the “vast wasteland” of television and believed that something positive could be done to help meet the needs of children who were increasingly being babysat by what was already being called the “boob tube.”

If you can’t beat ‘em…

His approach was a pragmatic one; he recognized the power of the medium of television and set about using it to make a positive impact on as many children as possible. The result was a show that touched the hearts of children, parents, and even US senators. It’s an approach that endures to this day in new programs such as Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, created based on his characters, as well as the research being championed at the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College.

Fred Rogers’ legacy inspired these new programs and important research institutions, but it also inspires us to have the courage to follow his example. In today’s wired world, where data connections are seemingly more important than personal connections, we strive every day to follow Fred’s lead, to take the power of technology and new media and guide it toward helping children realize their potential.

So today, on Fred Rogers’ birthday, let’s take a moment to reflect on the impact he made on the many children he reached with his message. Fred believed that every child is special and unique. He recognized the value of each individual child and worked to nourish their hearts. Inspired by his caring and kindness, we work to keep the spirit of his message alive in everything we do.

Happy Birthday Mister Rogers!

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The media diet

The study looked at 565 parents, about half of whom were given program guides and were encouraged to engage in co-viewing with their 3-5 year old children. The control group was given the same type of information on the subject of nutrition. The children whose parents were encouraged to seek out less aggressive television programs and more prosocial programming that encourages empathy, showed less aggression at the end of the study.

Parents today are rightly concerned that screen time has gone overboard. The average American preschool child watches 4.4 hours of television each day, despite the recommendations from the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) to limit screen time for kids two years of age and older to just one hour per day. Children begin watching TV at an average age of 4 months old, despite the AAP’s warning that children under two should have no screen time at all.

Focus on smart choices

This study was accompanied by a companion paper by Dr. Claire McCarthy urging pediatricians to revise their approach to children’s screen time. McCarthy acknowledges that the AAP’s guidelines have not had a strong effect on parents. “For years the American Academy of Pediatrics has been giving this recommendation, and for years families have been largely ignoring it.” That’s why it’s so refreshing to hear pediatricians write about a new approach for dealing with young children’s screen time that emphasizes the content and helping children get the most out of their screen time, instead of just telling parents to ‘turn it off.’

Make screen time count

These recommendations underscore our belief that media and technology can be a force for good. Every day we are looking at new ways to empower parents and make screen time count for kids. How do you make smart screen choices? Share your tips with other parents by posting a comment.

The post New research suggests varying a child’s media diet can improve behaviour appeared first on Kidobi Parent's Corner.

Recently a UK family noticed charges of $2500, which their son racked up in less than 15 minutes adding ‘bombs’ and ‘darts’ to battle zombies in an game on the family iPad. Apple did refund the family’s accidental purchases and provided them with instructions on how to avoid the situation in the future.

We believe that all parents should have this information, so if you want to use your iPad settings to keep your child from going on in-app spending sprees, follow this link to get a step by step guide to restricting applications and in-app purchases.

Do you have an in-app purchase horror story? Tell us about your experience in the comments below.

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As parents, we want our children to be creative and imaginative. Here are a few pointers for fostering creativity in your child (and also a few to avoid).

Give Choices

Empowering your child is one of the most important factors in forming a child’s creativity. Children (and adults for that matter) are empowered when they are given the ability to make their own choices. In a work environment, usually an employee is more productive if they have a voice in the process. Children need a voice, too.

Instead of planning a painting activity for your child, involve your child in the planning process. Let your child make some decisions, too. This may be difficult, especially for younger children. One good way to start off is by presenting options. Giving the choice of painting a t-shirt or creating a clay model makes the decision more tangible for the child than picking an activity out of the blue.

A Stimulating Environment

As humans, we are all influenced by our environment. If you work in a grey cubicle space at work, chances are you will add splashes of color to brighten up the atmosphere. You may hang pictures of your family to help you feel more at ease, and you may even burn a candle as well.

Children and adults share this commonality. In schools, classrooms which are vibrant with color, examples of different types of student work, and filled with text-rich resources are much more pleasant to enter than a room with bare walls and a bland color. There has been significant research that shows children learn much better in a more stimulating environment.

The same applies at home. Let your children be part of choosing colors for their rooms, display their artwork at their eye-level, and encourage them to be creative. Make a wide variety of creative resources available to them (e.g. paints, crayons, clay, construction paper). The availability of resources in a stimulating environment encourages children to be more creative.

Freedom to Fail

Once there were two groups of artists who participated in a competition to see who could make the best piece of art within a twenty-four hour timeframe. One group’s approach was to discuss the various approaches they could take and then decide on which was best and then pour all of their creative energy into one piece of art. The other group decided on a different approach: they ran with every idea that came to them and created dozens of pieces of art, thinking that they would then present the best one for the competition. Not only was the latter group’s piece of art more successful, but they actually produced multiple pieces that were judged to be “better” than the first group’s single piece.

As parents, this one may be the hardest. We want our children to succeed in every aspect of life, so allowing them the freedom to fail can be counterintuitive, yet it is necessary to ensure, not just creativity, but long-term success.

Praise the Effort

While helping our children through the creative process, we should praise the effort, not the product. This will help increase the child’s perseverance and willingness to think outside of the box. Additionally, parents should avoid projects that have only one solution (e.g. color-by-number, connect the dots) opting instead for activities that are more open ended.

The creative process requires experimentation and a great deal of trial-and-error. This necessitates failure on the part of the creator, which can be frustrating. It’s not our job as parents to rush to the rescue when our children get frustrated—instead, we should encourage them to try again and again.

Einstein was right, creativity is a true sign of intelligence. It’s that creative spark that drives most people to success. As parents, if we provide allow our children to make their own creative decisions, provide a stimulating environment with plenty of creative materials, and allow them room to make mistakes, we will help them be more successful in the creative process.

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Invented spellings are common once a child has learned that writing is a way of representing spoken language, but before they have learned all the exceptions and conventions of formal writing. Trying to spell, quite creatively sometimes, allows them to practice analyzing and categorizing the sounds of language.

An Analytic Tool

Invented spellings are useful because they help kids think about the sounds of the words they are trying to express. Developing a thorough understanding of the sound patterns of a language (phonological awareness) is a key component of learning to read. When children use invented spellings they are analyzing words, breaking them down into their constituent sounds, and applying their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences. This practice of thinking about letter-sound correspondences helps strengthen those connections, and helps support gains in other emergent literacy skills.

Creative is not incorrect

Encouraging creative spellings doesn’t mean encouraging kids to ignore the conventions of writing, but rather to use the knowledge they have about letters and sounds to have meaningful experiences with reading and writing. Too much focus on spelling correctly may cause some kids to become discouraged. In English writing, some letters make more than one sound and some sounds need more than one letter to write. That can be tough to remember for preschool kids.

Before a child is able to remember all those conventions and exceptions, invented spellings give kids the opportunity to understand the basics: that words are made up of sounds and that sounds can be represented by letters. In these early stages of literacy development, the priority should be to encourage kids to build their confidence and enjoy reading and writing, and invented spellings help kids do just that. Isn’t that ‘marvelis?’

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Potty Training? There’s an App For That

The iPotty, announced in Las Vegas during last week’s gadget love-fest (aka CES), features a clear cover and a splash guard to protect your ipad, but this approach to potty training leaves some parents questioning how far this will go. If we are using iPads to teach our kids the most basic of tasks, such as using a potty, what’s next? iDiaper? The idea of getting notifications when your child’s diaper is full is, in my opinion, as disquieting as the launch of the iPotty.

i is for incentive

This reminds me of a story I heard from Steven Levitt, co-author of the book Freakonomics. In the film of the same name, he demonstrates the power of incentives by recounting the story of how he successful got his daughter to use the potty. How did he do it? In a word: bribery (although I believe economists prefer the term incentive). By offering his daughter a prized treat he was able to incentivize the use of the potty to such a degree that within days she was able to carefully ration her pit stops so as to maximize her payout. In other words, she started going to the potty one drop at a time in order to get more candy.

So, perhaps iPotty 2.0 will come with a companion app that will require the child to (ahem) ‘make a deposit’ before allowing them access to their favourite app. And while the incentive may be effective, one has to wonder if some things are best done the old fashioned way.

Or maybe the iPotty is just giving young kids a way to be just like grown-ups? 

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About 180 days a year (give-or-take a couple of weeks depending upon your local school system), parents entrust the education of their children to other adults. As an educator, I take seriously my responsibility to educate the children who come to me every day. Since I have become a parent, this responsibility has become even more apparent to me.

The climate of public education has been extremely volatile over the past several years: teachers striking, school systems closing because of budget battles, and a myriad of other reasons. Combine these factors with school closures due to inclement weather and outbreaks of the flu, sometimes our children miss weeks if not months of instruction, leaving many parents asking, “What can I do to fill in the gaps?”

Tune in with Teachers

If your child’s school is experiencing gaps in service, the first thing you should do is to reach out to your child’s teacher. Every child is unique, and each child learns differently, so your child’s teacher will be able to provide the most accurate information about what your child needs to focus on. You child’s teacher should be able to give you some guidelines of what your child needs to know the most so you can prioritize what your child needs to learn.

Partner with Parents

Second, remember that you don’t have to tackle this alone. If there is an issue at your local school, then the rest of the parents are having the same issues. Call up other parents, and share this load. Swap out childcare duties with other parents, and play to each other’s strengths. If you struggle teaching math, but really enjoy teaching basic reading skills; swap with a parent who is the opposite. Working as a team will lessen the work load on everyone, and it will enable you to be more positive as you help your child succeed.

Read, Read, and Read Some More

Hopefully, reading is already a regular routine with your children. If not, start now. If you are reading with your kids, take this time to expand the type of books your read to your children. Make a visit to your local library, and check out some “content-area” books in addition to your usual story books. There are tons of great children’s books that revolve around history, science, and even math. Of course, most of them do tell stories, but they also include great content that can help your child grow in other ways.

As a reading teacher, I do emphasize reading a bit more than other things. The way I look at it is this: reading is an essential part of every discipline and career path. The more you read to your child, the better. The wider the variety of books you read to your child, the broader your child’s vocabulary is, and the deeper his or her understanding is.

To the Internet!

Of course, there is an abundance of knowledge available on the internet. There is also an abundance of out-dated, unreliable resources available on the internet. What websites can you trust to help you with your child’s education?

If you are a parent looking for some resources about how to teach a particular topic to your child or similar resources or activities, www.teacherspayteachers.com is a great tool. It is maintained by teachers who share resources they create themselves. Many teachers have free tools posted, and the resources you do have to pay for are usually affordable.

Overall, if your local school system is letting you down, there is nothing wrong with taking action to help your child fill in the gaps. Don’t be afraid to look for resources online to help. Take extra time to read with your child. Most importantly, don’t try to do it alone. Contact your child’s teacher, contact other parents, and develop a game plan; working together will help filling in the gaps be more enjoyable and effective.

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No Match for the Real Thing

The agency’s position is that active video games are not recommended as exercise for kids as they are not effective in getting kids to be more physically active overall. While it may be better to play a little Dance Revolution than a sedentary activity such as watching TV, active games lack many of the positive qualities of real exercise and outdoor play.

Dr. Mark Tremblay, Chief Scientific Officer of Active Healthy Kids Canada, points out that these games don’t provide many of the elements that contribute to the value of real outdoor activities, such as playing sports. Specifically, ‘exergames’ don’t offer fresh air, vitamin D, and the social connections that come with group activities.

Losing Interest

Kids are drawn to video games, but once the novelty has worn off the kids lose interest, making active games a questionable strategy for supporting ongoing physical activity among kids. Playing sports or going for a family hike or bike ride gives your child an opportunity to connect with friends, family and nature, in addition to providing good exercise.

Lead by Example

It may seem obvious, but one of the best ways to motivate your kids to be more active is to show an interest yourself. Go for a family hike or gather some friends together for a game of soccer. The Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines recommend “at least 60 minutes of moderate- to vigourous-intensity physical activity daily” for kids 5-11 years old. For preschoolers they recommend 180 minutes of physical activity of any intensity, spread throughout the day.

By making physical activity a priority in your life, and involving your kids, you’ll be leading by example. Besides, you might just have fun! How do you keep your family active? Share your strategy in the comments below.

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Learning by Play

It is important to remember that toddlers and preschoolers learn primarily through play. Everything in the world around them is still novel to them. Surrounded by new things, their understanding of the world is constantly being stretched to be wider and deeper than it was before.

Toddlers and preschoolers naturally learn fine motor, language and social skills through play. Children have a natural curiosity about them that drives them to learn more about the world around them. This natural curiosity can be stifled if a child is forced to learn concepts in isolation; nurture that natural curiosity — it will be their biggest asset in learning over the long haul.

What Can I Do?

Many parents strive, even obsessively, to prepare their children to succeed in an increasingly competitive world. These motivations come from good intentions, so you can put yourself at ease. Here are some basic things you can structure for your child. 2-5 year-olds should get 30 minutes of adult-led play and 60 minutes of free-play each day. Also, toddlers and preschoolers shouldn’t spend more than one hour at a time without play. Their attention span is shorter and they learn much more happily through play.

Explain as you go. As previously mentioned, the world is new and novel to your child; explain the world around them. Talk to your child constantly. This will help with language development. As your child grows, it is even more important that your child practice language. Encourage them to tell you about what they have done during the day, what they like, or anything else they want to talk about. Prompting a child to speak often will help build a bridge between ideas and words.

Promote social interactions for your child. Schedule play dates, visit the park, or guide interactions with others in public. Make sure you coach them through these interactions no matter how successful they turn out, acknowledging strengths as well as targeting areas for improvement are equally important. The more a child interacts with others, the faster social skills will develop.

Don’t sweat the academics just yet. You can teach basic things like counting and colours through everyday life encounters. Remember, the best quality learning occurs through real life experience, not through rote memorization of isolated content. Regularly put your child in new, engaging environments where that natural curiosity can take over. Read frequently to your child, but don’t push reading; forcing your child to read before they are ready could cause more harm than good.

Overall, just explain the world around them, and encourage their curiosity—this will help them develop into life-long learners.

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