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Age Appropriate Access To Media – If we accept that the media will continue to dish out whatever the populace will eagerly consume, then we can only conclude that the hyper sexualized images that are so pervasive in all types of media today will continue to be present for quite some time.
As a parent of a couple of tweens, my wife and I get to hear all the late breaking playground gossip during the dinner hour and I am frequently stunned at some of the media their peers have access to and most of it unmonitored, if not provided by a parent(s). It is almost as if the term “age appropriate” is not part of the parental vernacular any longer.
They will frequently come home asking if they can see a movie, watch a YouTube video or purchase a song on iTunes and in our process of vetting the content before we agree to let them have access, 80% of the time the content is COMPLETELY inappropriate for their age.
The language and imagery is clearly not for the eyes and ears of a child, yet parents are letting their kids have access. Whether it be with eyes wide open or eyes wide shut, these parents are ultimately facilitating the normalization of imagery, language and behaviors that are barely appropriate for adults never mind a child.
Today, children have tremendous access to information via the Internet, television, music videos, advertisements, and other emerging technologies… Much of the messaging in current pop culture promotes the normalization of harmful sexual behaviour… –kidsintheknow.ca…
It is important to understand that what can be considered inappropriate content, covers a broad spectrum of media from simple lyrics to a song to hard core pornography. Your child’s ability to process and make sense of what they see develops with age just as their ability to learn does. You do not toss your child into grade 12 when they are kindergarten age so why then would you subject your child to media content they cannot process and put into context?
Managing access to harmful hyper sexualized media takes effort but in the end it might just prevent producing a trashy teen. Remember, as a parent you have a responsibility to monitor what your child is exposed to and it isn’t all that difficult.
- Don’t give your child unlimited and unsupervised access to a computer.
- Learn how to use parental controls on your computer and TV.
- Check the lyrics of the music your child wants to buy. If it is inappropriate, don’t get it.
- If a movie is PG 13 don’t take your 9 year old, or even your 12 year old. Just because your child wants to see a movie, does not mean the have to see the movie.
- Don’t buy your pre teen, material which is meant for young adults. Magazines are a great example of a type of media that relays messages about body image that can be incredibly harmful to a pre teen who barely understands their own body never mind make sense of the surgically augmented, Photoshop’ed forms presented in the pages of most popular culture magazines.
- If you insist in exposing your child to adult oriented media, talk to your child about images they see and lyrics they hear and to try and begin to build a healthy frame of reference by which they can understand it.
Again, the earlier your child is exposed to adult oriented media the greater risk there is for objectionable behaviors in their teens and into adulthood.
My name is Rebecca Becker and I am a graduate student in Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology. For my dissertation, I am conducting a study which examines the way in which technology influences how parents monitor their child’s activities. The results of this study will illustrate how technology impacts parenting practices and the parent-child relationship. If you are the parent of an adolescent age 13-18, please click the link below to take my survey.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5G3793C
I totally agree that parents are allowing their children access to way too much lurid stuff out there. I think one of the biggest reasons for this is because parents are too selfish and want to watch stuff that their children have no business watching. I also think that many parents nowadays are busy and stressed and don’t want to take the time to ‘preview’ the things their children want to listen to or watch. This is an essential part of parenting and too many parents are neglecting it. Thanks for sharing your views!
John W.´s last blog post ..Rite of Passage – Becoming a Page
Thanks John, I appreciate your comment(s)
Yes it is a whole lot easier to just let things slide if you are a parent. If you don’t monitor or simply just let you child consume what your consume in the way of media, it is not a very good way to go about things. The crap that is out there is barely appropriate for adults never mind kids yet many parents don’t even think about what effect it might have on their child.
Cheers,
K. Rispin
Absolutely! One thing I’ve noticed about age appropriateness is that there seems to be a hypersensitivity to sexual content in movies by the MPAA but, almost no awareness of violence. And, when violence does get tagged, there isn’t a distinction between gratuitous “DOOM” type violence and the violence of say Saving Private Ryan. While they are equally violent movies, I think we could agree that Saving Private Ryan is a much healthier movie. Now, while the MPAA can be excused for painting with a broad brush, parents can’t. It’s the parent’s responsibility to screen movies and music. Would you rather your kid listen to “Mack the Knife” or some base Gangster Rap? Unfortunately most parents don’t do any screening at all.
Keith Wilcox´s last blog post ..Road Hog! The Unwritten Rules of the Road
Thanks for the comment Keith,
The violence thing is another whole can of worms.
What I find mot disturbing in today’s media is the glorification of violence associated with the “Gangsta” lifestyle. If I were to show the opening to Saving Private Ryan in school, you would have the majority of kids being truly horrified by what they were seeing but gangsta violence does not seem to have the same effect. Boys especially, seem to feel that violence associated with behaving like a street thug to be ok.
You hear things like, “well they deserved it” or “they had it coming to them” There is a definite disconnect between acceptable and unacceptable in our children’s world.