Life Coaching Series #1: How to Be a Media-Wise Parent

This is the first of several posts I will do in collaboration with Life Coach, Carrie Hoffman!
I’m very excited to partner with her to bring you some new thoughts
about parenting and relationships.

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Carrie has a B.S. in Psychology and has been through many, many training courses with the focus on parenting and relationships. She was married to her husband in 1995 and has two school-aged children.

She believes that every individual was created for a positive purpose and that every experience, good and bad, can teach us something valuable. She spends her time coaching people in parenting and relationships so she can help guide them through that all-important learning process.

Please visit her informative website to learn more about her and to find some some great parenting and relationship resources : Embrace Life Coaching. You can even sign up to receive her monthly newsletter with thought-provoking articles.

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Now, on to how to be a media-wise parent!

In one of her newsletters, Carrie spoke about a great resource regarding screening movies and video games for your children. It’s impossible to keep up with the latest and greatest when it comes to kid programs and video games. So, how can you do it besides watching everything or playing every game first?

Visit Common Sense Media! Parents with kids of any movie-viewing, app-tinkering, website-visiting, music-listening, video game-playing, or book-reading age can find value in this site. The more parents who participate, the more useful this site will be for all parents and all parenting styles.

CSM says they are “an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization”.

This is a blurb from their website:

“We exist because our nation’s children spend more time with media and digital activities than they do with their families or in school, which profoundly impacts their social, emotional, and physical development . As a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization, we provide trustworthy information and tools, as well as an independent forum, so that families can have a choice and a voice about the media they consume.”

SO, WHAT DO THEY REVIEW?

Movies —- Video Games —- Apps —- Websites —- TV —- Books —- Music

I’ll go over the movie area of the site with you. You can count on the other areas being just as useful.

When I opened up the movie area of the site, I could tell how to use CSM’s system immediately, due to the legend on the sidebar (click on the image to enlarge, or visit the site and follow along):

THE MOVIE SECTION OF THE SITE:

I have to say: this site is AMAZING! I’m glad SOMEONE is doing their homework so I don’t have to! The “experts” at Common Sense Media give their age rating, but parents can also give theirs. If you are interested in a movie and want to make sure you are going to show something you’d approve your little bambino seeing, I definitely recommend you visit Common Sense Media (no, this is not a paid advertisement!).

Some movies they list even have a “play” arrow on the picture. This shows clips from the movie with a voiceover explaining the goods and the bads, which allows parents to decide whether or not to show this video to their child. Don’t worry, though — even if the video doesn’t depict a “play” arrow, you will still be able to read all the nitty-gritty details.

When you click on a movie title, you will see something like this — We’ll be using “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” as an example:

CATEGORIES USED TO ASSESS A MOVIE’S WORTHINESS OF BEING SEEN BY YOUR CHILD:

1) Quality Rating: (is it a good movie? 1-5 stars)
2) Age recommendation (they use a red, yellow, green system on the age to let you know how age-appropriate the movie is):