Real Reality: Antidote To Media Madness
by Cheryl Gibson Smith

June is a great month to unplug your children from their electronic devices and virtual reality and connect them fully into the exciting world of real reality. You’ll recognize real reality by the way it requires you to move your body, engage your senses and interact with the environment. Reality makes your heart beat faster as you dribble a basketball, dance to the music or swim across the pool. Reality looks like a mountain trail, sounds like an outdoor concert, tastes like homemade ice cream, feels like a summer shower and smells like a sweaty game of tag. Reality requires give and take in dialogue, it demands involvement with others and it invites creative participation in a world of concrete experiences.

Television, computers, video games and movies on DVD are all wonderful advancements in technology that entertain us, teach us, and engage us. Research shows that older children can benefit from watching television, using the computer and playing video games. The problem comes when children spend more time with electronic activities than they spend formulating their own images, exchanging ideas, asserting themselves in their environment or interacting with significant others.

These days electronic media are integrated into every area of our lives and are central to both our work and play. We are learning more and more about the effects this relatively new technology is having on our children. Discerning parents need to use caution as they make decisions about how their children spend their time. Developmental science has made it clear that young children birth to six are the most vulnerable to some of the negative effects of media use such as obesity, fear, aggression and sleep disruption. The human brain completes the majority of its development during the first three years of life in response to environmental stimuli. The kind of stimuli that encourage optimal brain development are interactions with parents and other humans, manipulations of objects such as blocks and toys, and engagement in creative problem-solving activities. Because interaction with media does not do any of these things, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend screen viewing for children under the age of two. They further recommended that children two years and older be limited to one to two hours of electronic entertainment per day (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1999). Unfortunately, a recent survey revealed that most parents are not aware of the Academy’s recommendations and a Zero to Six study reported that 74% of children under the age of two watch television and that 59% of them watch TV about 2 hours a day. Thirty percent of children under the age of three and 43% of children four to six years old have televisions in their bedrooms. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that TV viewing at age one and three was associated with parental reports of attention disorder symptoms at age seven. The body fat and body mass index of children between four and eleven increased the most among children who watched the most TV. When children are involved with electronic media they are not involved with the real life experiences that are necessary for optimal growth and development of healthy minds and bodies. Parents must also be alert to the dangers of the content of the programs, commercials, movies and games their children come in contact with. Remember, what surrounds your child teaches your child. For the most part, adults are not around when children are interacting with electronic media. The images and concepts they encounter might be confusing or frightening without the presence of a trusted adult to help them understand and interpret.

So, what’s a parent to do? First of all devise a family plan for the use of electronic media. Most families don’t have a plan; they just watch whatever is on TV or play video games whenever they are bored. Decide ahead of time how much time your family will spend with electronic media and what programs, games or movies you will be watching. Get a timer for the computer. Peruse the TV guide at the beginning of the week and ask family members to choose the programs they plan to watch that fit within their allowed minutes. Sit with your children as they watch TV and movies or surf the net. Play video games with them and have conversations about your impressions of the content and violence. Question the validity of the claims made on commercials to help your children think critically about the messages that bombard them. Challenge the quick-fix outcome of a thirty-minute sitcom where a teenager solves a big dilemma with a few witty wisecracks and some clever manipulation. Parents who help their children become media literate at an early age give them important tools for counteracting the negative effects of the pervasive media culture. Parents who treat electronic media like a stranger with unknown intentions can keep their children safe from unwanted consequences. Once you have a plan in place for time spent with electronic media, come up with a plan for time spent in real reality. This plan should have lots of physical exercise, lots of time for dialogue, and lots of creative outlets. Make sure you have the strongest influence on your children.

Cheryl Gibson Smith, Executive Director, The Parent Coach Company
Cheryl has dedicated her career to working with children and families. For over thirty years she has been passionate about helping parents and teachers develop the skills and knowledge to guide children toward self-reliance and joyful living. With both Bachelor and Masters degrees in education, Cheryl has taught children from infancy to middle school in Georgia, Florida and California as well as a very exciting three-year public school adventure in Brisbane, Australia.

Ms. Smith also spent two decades as a program administrator in various public, private, corporate and church-related educational settings. It was during these years that Cheryl developed her expertise and certifications as a parent educator. She has often been a featured speaker at local, state and national conferences and taught parenting classes for parents with children of all ages. She has raised two self-reliant children as a single, working mother. It was a journey filled with highs and lows, humility and pride, laughter and tears all safely wrapped in unconditional love.