Our children are surrounded by all kinds of media. That media can have many different effects on our children. As parents we can help shape what kind of effect media will have on our families.
A few years ago I had a discussion about kids and television with a friend studying psychology. One idea that he presented was that there is not some magic number of hours our kids spend in front of the television (or computer) that is good or bad for our kids. What is more important is the quality time that we spend with our kids.
One great activity we can share with our kids is watching movies together. When I was a preteen, my Dad would take me to the movies a couple times a month, just the two of us (being the youngest of seven, one-on-one time with a busy Dad was hard to come by). I can still remember some of the movies we saw together, one was Free Willy (he always let me pick the movies). What we saw wasn't important, what was important was our time together.
Along with watching movies, discussing them can be a great learning activity and a critical part of why we want to watch movies with our kids. We can talk about right and wrong, discussion characters actions and consequences. We can help our kids understand story and theme, skills that will help them in those literature classes. You could even use the discussion questions for the family friendly movies you get from Movie Club 4 Families. And those are just a few ideas. Who knows, you might even learn something from your kids.
Since our kids are going to be exposed to media their whole lives, why not start now teaching them more about it to help them. The website
Sixty Second Parent recently posted a very helpful
article about teaching media literacy to younger children. It's a great introduction to teaching kids about how to approach all of the media they encounter.