The American Psychological Association discussed the trend of media bombarding or children with inappropriate and harmful images, at their Annual Convention. Tomi-Ann Roberts, PhD, a member of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls defines sexualization as a process that encourages girls and young women in an imposed way to be valued by themselves, and others, only for their sexual appeal, above any other characteristic. Ultimately, the emphasis on an unattainable body image damages the health and self-image of girls and young women, and can lead to eating disorders, anxiety and depression.

The stereotyping of girls is at the heart of this problem. From the beginning, girls are coached by advertisers and the media to be sweet, feminine and nurturing, and—as they get slightly older—sexy, said Sharon Lamb, EdD, co-author of “Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006) Lamb emphasized that psychologists can help combat these messages by teaching parents and their children to understand media manipulation. Parents have the power to teach kids values that they—not advertising or the culture—define, said Lamb. They can show their children how to examine why they like the things they like, and to realize when they’re being duped. And everyone needs to learn to ask questions such as: “Why must female volleyball players always wear bikinis?” and “Why would a 6-year-old need a push-up bra?” said Lamb.

According to Brian Wilcox, PhD, selling sex is not the only problem. Marketers are also selling unhealthy eating habits and behaviors. In the past few decades, children have become increasingly targeted by marketers, such that an estimated $15 billion was spent by various companies pitching fast food, sugary cereals and junk food to kids, said Wilcox, with much of the advertising appearing on cable channels aimed at children, such as Nickelodeon.

All that advertising has an effect, both on families’ purchasing patterns and children’s health, with studies showing that children’s product preferences drive almost $500 million in annual household purchases. Meanwhile, 16 percent of U.S. children are obese, and government surveys show that the percentage of children classified as overweight rose from 5 percent to almost 14 percent from 1976 to 2000, Wilcox said.

Link to article US children.html

This morning I saw an interesting video report on MSNBC about girls and blogging. It featured agirlsworld.com which is a website run solely by two girls. Statistics show that 20% of boys blog vs 35% of girls. Girls tend to out perform boys in English and writing and are better able to express themselves which makes them natural born bloggers. Experts hope that this will translate into adulthood. Women occupy only 27% of math and computer related jobs and there has been a 70% decline in female computer science majors. This early experience gives girls hands on experience and provides a comfort level with technology.

This is a great use of technology and it offers up good peer role models. As a mother of a daughter, it is encouraging to see stories like this. From an early age we have encouraged familiarity with technology, esp. computers for both of our kids. My daughter loves programs like Scratch www.scratch.com and Crazy Machines crazy machines. No one has told her that she can’t program or solve engineering problems, sometimes faster than her Aerospace engineering father. Whether or not she pursues a high tech career, these skills will help her think critically and problem solve with the best of them.

Link to video Girls Rule the Web

The other day my husband came home from the Apple store with something new, as he is wont to do. This time he picked up Spongebob Teaches Typing, for our kids. As Mac users know software choices are limited and this was the only choice, of two, available in the store. Spongebob got me to thinking about character tie-ins and how prevalent they are in our kids lives. In our house Spongebob not only teaches typing but also level 2 reading and endorses Cheez-its, where does he find the time? My kids don’t watch much Spongebob but they don’t need to in order to recognize him and his motley crew of undersea friends. Tie-ins are something that Disney has elevated to high art and Nickelodeon, Spongebob’s home network, is not far behind. The problem for me is that they are developing brand loyalty in our kids from their earliest moments in life. This helps to feed the beast that is consumerism and the “I want that” mentality of kids. Even though we have avoided most of the obvious character riddled products, some do sneak in. Take a look around and see what characters have taken up residence in your home.

Here is an article about marketing tie-ins for the new Indiana Jones movie, it is quite a diverse lot. 2008-04-20-indiana-jones-skull-marketing_N.htm

If you are looking for typing programs here are two review sites Software for kids 2008 review and Superkids software reviews

In 1966 Joan Ganz Cooney and her colleagues proposed the idea of using television to educate underserved preschoolers. They would later found the Children’s Television Workshop and of course the legendary program Sesame Street. Their Workshop model paved the way for all of the educational children’s program that we have today. Forty years later they have established the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a great website with a positive and timely focus. Here is their mission:

The mission of The Joan Ganz Cooney Center is to catalyze and support research, innovation and investment in digital media technologies to advance children’s learning. Nurturing foundational and “21st century” literacies. The inaugural focus of the Center—given the national need—will be on determining how technology can help elementary-aged children develop the fundamental building blocks of literacy. These include the vital reading, writing, speaking and listening capabilities that all children must develop during the primary grades. A special emphasis of the Center will be on struggling readers who risk educational failure if they do not catch up to their peers by grade four.
Another important focus of the Center is to leverage the potential of interactive media to promote “21st century” literacies that students will need to compete and cooperate in our connected world—competencies such as critical thinking and problem solving, second language competency, inter-cultural understanding and media literacy. www.joanganzcooneycenter.org

Link to Sesame Workshop: www.sesameworkshop.org

My nephew, who is 14, has been visiting for the summer. As a parent of younger kids, I am not well versed in the world of teenagers. He is constantly talking and texting on his cell phone, surfing the web, has a MySpace page, set to private and is into Japanese anime. All of these tech/internet related activities got me to thinking about the safety of our kids online.

In 1998, Congress enacted the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA” or “the Act”) to address privacy and safety risks created when children under 13 years of age (“children”) use the Internet. To protect children, the Act imposes requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children, and other operators with actual knowledge that they have collected personal information from children. The Act generally mandates that such operators must provide notice of their privacy policies; obtain verifiable parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children; allow parents to review and delete personal information that their children have provided; and establish and maintain reasonable procedures to protect the security of personal information collected from children. (source www.privo.com)

We have all heard the horror stories about online predators and kids lying to get access to sites. So it is never too early or too late to educated ourselves and our kids about the dangers that can befall them online.

Here are some good sites for education and help related to this topic: socialnetworking.html, www.wiredkids.org, journal

We have all heard of active video games by now. Guitar Hero started the craze, to the tune of $1 billion in sales but Nintendo’s Wii has expanded the genre. Players of all ages can play baseball, fish, box, bowl and even do yoga. These games are much more active than traditional games but are they really any better, health wise? Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston have been wondering the same thing. Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is game where players use a special mat and dance to prompts. DDR has been used successfully in schools, homes and afterschool programs. In order to provide cardio related benefits, new games have to raise heart rates enough to burn calories, so arm and wrist movements are not enough. One positive of these games is the lack of food commercials and the inability to eat and play at the same time. But parents are cautioned that some games have players act out extremely violent actions, in realistic ways. One game on Wii has actual stabbing and punching instead of button presses, so parents need to exercise caution when choosing games.

Link to article go-go_games.html

Link to studies on Video game violence and kids behavior violence.asp

PBS is known for their great programs for kids and this website is no different. It is an easy to use, well laid out site for parents and kids. They break down media categories into groups like; TV & Movies, Video Games, Computers and Advertising. These categories contain sub-headings for Preschoolers, Grade schoolers, Pre-teens and Teens. They also have Milestones, which gives age by age tips on what parents can do to make kids more media savvy. There are also articles and information for parents which cover various topics like; Creating with Media, TV Viewers guide, Sorting out Scientific Studies and more. They even have an IM, TXT lexicon and Media glossary. All in all a fun and informative site that is great for parents just learning abouthttp://www.pbs.org/parents/childrenandmedia/images/art-videogames-sml.jpg media and it’s influence on our kids. Here is the site link. PBS Media

I read an article recently on MediaWise, they are a part of the National Institute on Media and the Family. In this column they talked about how advertisers and others are getting their message to our kids. One way is Advergaming in which videogames contain advertising messages. They incorporate these messages into the background of the games. The revenues from this type of advertising can be as much as ten percent of the 10 billion dollar gaming industry. Another part of the story is how hate groups are using media, like free music CD’s, which are filled with the groups message to recruit white children. This is scary and it goes to show how media can be used in highly negative ways. Here is the link to the original story.Advertisers Want Piece, not Peace, of Mind