Help Your Kids Deal With Media Messages

Eat this, wear that, buy this, have one of these or you won't be as cool as the kid around the block... Are you fighting a constant battle with your kids because they are influenced by the media messages coming through their TV viewing, movie product placements, magazine reading and internet usage? It's time to help them sort out the realities before these are created for them and they try to live up to unrealistic expectations.

Steps

 * 1)  Limit the exposure. The best thing that you can do is to reduce the hours kids spend watching TV and surfing the internet, where they are confronted regularly by media messages seeking the youth dollar. DVDs can make a good alternative to too much TV and internet usage should be limited anyway as part of a balanced day.
 * 2)  Talk to your kids. Be open and honest from the word go. Tell them what advertising is really about and what it is aimed to do. Kids will listen if you don't preach but just put the facts before them.
 * 3)  Discuss unrealistic body images. This is vital. Kids pick up subliminal messages from toddler years about what is the "right" way to look and this can set them on the rocky road to unrealistic body image ideas. Explain what comes behind the "perfect bodies", such as airbrushing, plastic surgery, tricks of photography, severe dieting. After you have finished with this list of tricks and horrors, most kids will be squirming at the grossness of the details! There are also some great internet sites revealing airbrushing secrets if you need to do a show and tell to convince them.
 * 4)  Discuss how media messages affect us. All of us, young and old. Perhaps cite a story of your own as to how you were affected when you were younger (or maybe even now!) and the consequences of that. Making it personal has greater resonance for children.
 * 5)  Teach your kids to critically assess what they view and what they are told by media. Tell them not to accept things at face value but to look for facts and reasons, and most importantly of all, to ask questions. For kids who are old enough, explain how advertisements manipulate us by aiming for our insecurities, wants and fears. Show your kids how to critically assess information by doing it; do it actively yourself as you listen to the radio, TV, read the paper etc. Make a game of it for younger kids; for older kids and teens, praise their powers of critique as these form.
 * 6)  Find alternatives to the power of advertising. There are many ways that you can offset the powerful messages of the "perfect world" put forth by media. Just some of them include:
 * 7) *Spending time with your kids doing things that don't involve materialistic outcomes, for example, prefer a hike over a shopping trip.
 * 8) *Teaching them the joy of making things with their own hands rather than buying every latest gadget on the market.
 * 9) *Helping them to enjoy food sensibly by encouraging a love of cooking in them early on so that they become familiar with the real textures, flavors and joys of real food.
 * 10) *Finding family rituals that establish their place in the world as a firm part of a stable, happy family. Reassurance and knowledge that they are loved and wanted is far more important than images of a "perfect life".

Tips

 * Food adverts are targeted to kid's prime time. This sends a dangerous signal to kids sitting still doing nothing but watching TV; eat a lot. In turn, kids then see thin models and the mixed messages about food and weight begin, often forming the germ of eating disorders.

Things You'll Need

 * Alternatives to TV, internet, mass media

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