Family Media Plan helps parents set boundaries for kids [AAPPublications.org]

Samantha Sangenito 10/30/164:09 PM

It can be overwhelming for parents to manage all of the media options available to children and adolescents around the clock and sort out the pros and cons of screen time.

While media use can help build kids’ social skills, it also can put them at risk of obesity, lost sleep, bullying, addiction and violence, according to new guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

To help families navigate the digital world, the AAP has developed a Family Media Plan. Parents and children can use the plan to customize guidelines on screen time, ensuring that media use is in line with their family’s values. This personalized plan also helps children establish a healthy relationship with media, including televisions, smartphones, computers, tablets and even watches.

“Creating a Family Media Plan is an important step in helping parents realize that they can, and should, still ‘parent’ their children’s online life and be aware of, and hopefully approve of, their online and media choices,” said Corinn Cross, M.D., FAAP, a pediatrician who helped develop the resource.

[For more of this story, written by Trisha Korioth, go to http://www.aappublications.org...1/MediaParents102116]

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Jackie HamiltonMember

This is why at PBS Kids Ready To Learn Service we have been touting wise media habits since the late 1960's! I myself model at story times, and teach adult workshops in 20 places every month based on the View, Read, and Do Learning Triangle. Using this triangle helps demonstrate to adults who care for children how to limit the time spent in front of screens and to extend the learning of what is seen during educational, age-appropriate, and non-violent quality screen time by viewing short video clips from the www.pbskids.org www.pbsparents.org and the www.pbslearningmedia.org websites, reading books and doing hands on activities based on a central theme. The hidden advantage of this fun time spent with children is that the adult in charge is using all 3 vital learning styles, auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.

Mr. Rogers put media use in perspective in his address to the United States Congress with these words....."Love and hate are both 4-letter words. It's what you do with them and how you do it that makes all the difference in the world."

Note: The paper from the AAPA was never highly researched nor followed up on. Pediatricians just assumed that if kids turned off the TV, they would go out and play. Via Ready To Learn we had been teaching kids to watch just one hour of screen time and then the AAPA came out saying two hours!

All this being said, can anyone figure out why PBS needs to be cut from the federal budget?

11/2/1610:29 AM

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