2 year old barely talks but rules the iPad....

Thanks to Shira Weinstein for sharing this one. What reactions do you  have to this little one's mastery of digital technology?

 

Parental Mediation of scary news and children's fear

Thanks to Melissa Watcher for sharing this research article about parental mediation strategies and violent news. All too timely!

I found it interesting that restrictive mediation was not helpful in reducing fear. This has mostly been my strategy and will continue to be with my 2 youngest. It occurs to me, however, that it may backfire with older children like my son because just because you don't allow access to the news doesn't mean they won't hear about something scary from someone else. If you don't even know they've heard about it, you  have no chance to reassure them. Very interesting.

http://crx.sagepub.com/content/34/2/212.full.pdf+html

Not feeling the love, Dove

It's GUEST BLOGGER TIME!! WOO-HOO! 

Everyone's into this Dove video at the University of Michigan too, so you're not alone. But let's think like researchers for a moment, and examine the state of the evidence. 

It's hard to find fault with someone who calls you beautiful, so thanks, Dove--but research on self-objectification (i.e., definition of self in terms of appearance, see Harrison & Fredrickson, Journal of Communication, 2003) shows that adolescent girls and women who define themselves in terms of their appearance are at greater risk for depression, body shame, and eating disorders. Key point: it makes NO difference whether you think you're ugly or beautiful. The fact that Dove is encouraging us to feel good about our appearance is nice, but it doesn't make self-objectification any healthier.

I link this body of research on self-objectification being harmful even if you like what you see with Carol Dweck's research showing that telling kids they're "smart" backfires as well. They do worse on successive assignments and choose less risky options. It's a compliment, but the underlying message is "Your value TO US is your intelligence." So they get scared of performing poorly and thus losing their value to others. When we tell our daughters that they're beautiful and smart, they hear that we value them for their beauty and intelligence. If not, wouldn't we mention other attributes? It’s a sort of individual-level agenda-setting process. So they conclude that they'd better not risk seeming stupid, or looking ugly, and those duties suck energy away from what's important. Even telling someone she's funny can put pressure on her to be funny all the time. If you think you look ugly, you put energy into fixing that problem, because your value is your appearance. If you think you look beautiful, you put energy into maintaining it, because your value is your appearance. The solution is not to convince yourself that you’re beautiful; it’s to reduce the frequency with which you think about your appearance as a central aspect of self altogether.

As for beauty specifically, let’s be literal about what it is: an observer’s brain’s judgment of the aesthetic pleasantness of the array of light rays that bounce off your skin and hair and through their retinas. Kind of a weird thing to incorporate into our definition of self. But our willingness to make beauty part of our self-definition is essential to Dove’s success. Witness the script line at 5:35: “I should be more grateful (for) my natural beauty. It impacts the choices and the friends that we make, the jobs we apply for, how we treat our children… it impacts everything… it couldn’t be more critical to your happiness.” Really? I think the truth is, thinking about ourselves in terms of our beauty couldn’t be more critical to Dove’s bottom line.

As a parent, I try to compliment my kids mostly on things they have control over even if they're not at their best. Anyone can be persistent, curious, thoughtful, inquisitive, humble, and honest--and all of those things end up producing good performance without putting the child's "smart" identity at stake. As for beauty, do I tell my kids they’re beautiful? Of course, because they ARE and it slips out sometimes. But I try to make it the thing I mention least often, so they don’t get the wrong idea about what makes them people of value.

Harrison & Fredrickson (2003):

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2003.tb02587.x/abstract

Article about Carol Dweck’s research and the inverse power of praise:

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

More Dove Beauty

Thanks to Kristin Brady AND Melissa Fanelli for sharing this video clip. This is more great work from the Dove campaign illustrating that women are their own worst critics when it comes to describing how they look.

http://mashable.com/2013/04/15/dove-ad-beauty-sketches/

"Look for the helpers....."

Thanks to Kelsey Selig for sending along the Mr. Rogers quote related to helping children cope with scary things they hear in the news.

TV blocking using V-Chip Technology

Thanks to Laura Dembofsky for passing this link along. The aim is to help parents understand and use blocking technology to filter inappropriate TV content. As we'll see in lecture, many parents aren't aware of the v-chip ratings or how to use them. 

http://www.thetvboss.org/

Sexual assault followed up by cyberbullying leads to a teen suicide...

I'm warning you upfront that this is very upsetting. This teen took her life after being sexually assualted while she was passed out at a party. As if that wasn't bad enough, her assailants took pictures of the act and shared them online. They went viral. Ultimately, the victim killed herself.

Thanks to Jesse Lyons for sharing.

http://news.yahoo.com/3-teens-arrested-assault-girls-suicide-024221519.html

With this type of thing in mind, I'm sharing with you a link I plan to share with my own son in the next year or so. It's a letter another blogger wrote to her 11 and 8 year old sons about stopping rape.

Stopping Rape

Virtual piggy bank

Thanks to Katharina Young for sharing this article about a virtual piggy bank to help young kids shop online responsibly and safely. This is very timely given our discussion about kids accidentally spending hundreds of dollars online!

http://www.internetretailer.com/2013/03/28/virtual-piggy-focuses-children-growing-e-commerce

Shield Genie: blocking software and tips for parents to help protect their children.

Thanks to Zachary Lewis for sharing this blocking technology. As a parent, I find this one appealing because it texts and emails you a screen capture the moment your child uses a 'blocked" search term. It also monitors emails, IMs and webcams.

Shield Genie

They also provide some great tips for internet safety.

The Potential of Exergames for kids...

This article found that when kids consistently play exergames, like DDR max, their physical health AND academic achievement improve. I have a theory as to why playing DDR improved math, what do you think?

http://www.bitescience.com/Knowledgedatabase/Article/tabid/81/ArticleID/158/ArticleName/ThePotentialofExergames/ChannelID/12/ChannelName/Homepagerotator/Access/Anonymous/Default.aspx?utm_source=Labnotes+Newsletter&utm_campaign=17b78e6740-Labnotes&utm_medium=email

Kid trades Mac N Cheese for PG-13 movie...

Thanks to Melissa Wachter for passing along this commercial. Aside from the "dads are buffoons and will let kids do anything mom doesn't want them to" I think this commercial does a good job illustrating one of the main challenges of setting rules and limits regarding kids' media use. Kids want to watch TV...and they want to watch things that are not necessarily appropriate for them. This can set up conflict within families. Do you remember having any conflict related to media use in your family?