Your Kids' Media Guide
Helping parents more effectively manage their children's media use

Learn how to effectively manage your child's media use.

Should you be concerned over your child's media use? Many parents fondly remember watching TV as a child. You may think, "TV never did me any harm." That may be true. But we've all read stories in the news about how television, video games and music inspire violence, sexual promiscuity and bad language in children today. These stories are backed up by the research, which we will discuss later. These negative influences don't always end so badly that they become news stories, but the effects are there nonetheless. The good news is that it doesn't have to be that way. We'll show you how to effectively manage your children's media use, and help them become more responsible consumers of media.

Media need not be a negative influence, but like many things in life, it can become negative if it's abused or not managed.

Parenting children in today's media-saturated world has become very difficult. Parents are challenged to know how to limit, and control their children's use of media, including television, the internet, music, and video games. Parents often feel that their children know more about these devices and media sources than they do, and as a result, feel out of control.

We've written a book that gives you practical gives you the background you need to understand media choices, how they can affect your children, and what you can do to manage their use of media.

You know what's right for your children. You may decisions about what's in their best interest all day long. Parents must exercise judgment as to what media choices are right for their children. We do not tell you what your children should watch. However, parents are not born with knowledge about the effects of media on children, what to look for in your children, and how to effectively set limitations. We simply give you the resources you need to make informed choices, and implement them in your family.

Ultimately, parents can't shelter their children from all bad influences, but parents can teach children how to recognize them and cope with them. This book is a resource for parents to help educate their children on how to be smarter consumers of media, and not fall prey to the negative aspects of media. Ultimately, we want to help parents make children more media literate, and therefore more responsible for their own media use.

If you and your family get nothing else from this book, we hope that you become more aware of your children's media use. By talking to your children, and setting guidelines with them, you can help them be happier and more productive.

Here's what other parents say about their children's use of media. Where you do fall?

Source: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Study: You can download and read this study and many others for free from www.kff.org.

Here are what other parents say in their own words about their experiences with media and its effect on their children

“I worry about sex…They grow up and see all this stuff on TV and feel it is expected of them. That terrifies me.” 

“They are constantly being lured by the media. There are times I give in. There is just too much out there I have to monitor.”

Source: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

Important Facts to Know about Media Use and its Effects on Children

  • As early as 1961

  • Media has a proliferated in the past 50 years:

1950 Today
Children had black & white TV, radio, movies, and print media. broadcast, cable, and satellite TV, the TV remote control, the VCR, the DVR, print media (books, magazines, newspapers), various audio media (broadcast, satellite, and cable radio, tapes, CDs, digital recordings – all of which are now highly portable), personal computers and the various on-line activities they allow (e.g., World Wide Web, e-mail, instant messaging, gaming, music and video streaming), video games (both TV-based and handheld), and portable telephones that connect to the Internet and do most of what any digital screen will do
3-5 broadcast channels, 3-5 radio stations in most areas Hundreds of cable channels, hundreds of radio stations, satellite radio, movies, DVDs, etc.
87% of homes had a TV 99% of homes have a TV set, 60% have three or more, more than 50% have a TV in their bedroom. 70% of homes with children have a video game console, 69% have personal computers.

  • In the past five years, the proportion of 8- to 18-year-olds with computers in their home has increased 13 percentage points (from 73% to 86%), and the proportion with Internet connections has grown from 47% to 74%. Instant messaging, a computer activity that barely existed in 1999, has now become one of the most popular things to do online. (Source: Kaiser Family Foundation)

  • Your representatives in Washington DC are fighting the major media companies on this issue. In 2005, Barak Obama, weighed in on the FCC's efforts to curb indecency on broadcast television:

"Broadcasters, cable and satellite providers must bolster indecency efforts to reduce inappropriate material on shows kids watch. If they don't, Congress will act instead." (CD Nov 10, 2005)

Sentors Stevens (R-Alaska), Brownback, and Lieberman (D-CT) have all been vocal on this issue.

About the book What Parents Should Know about Media for their Children

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