10 12, 2012

Parenting: Are Your Children Overloaded with Information?

By | December 10th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , |1 Comment

The Internet, and all of the new computer and communication technology that has sprung from it, have been a boon to the information age, making information available at children’s fingertips instantaneously. The sheer volume of information now accessible online is staggering; there are around 50 billion pages on the Web. Information continues to become more available [...]

26 11, 2012

Practical Ways to Teach Values to Your Children

By | November 26th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , , , |0 Comments

Values are a pretty darned touchy subject to bring up these days when it comes to raising children. Values have gotten a bad rap because of how they are discussed in politics and as they relate to religious beliefs. When most people hear the term values used, they often think of the hot-button value issues [...]

19 11, 2012

Healthy Values Protect Your Kids from Media’s Unhealthy Messages

By | November 19th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , |2 Comments

So what values will children growing up in the 21st century need to thrive? Perhaps surprisingly, my answer is the same values that have enabled children to thrive in previous generations: respect, responsibility, hard work, integrity, compassion, just to name a few. The increased presence of popular media in no way changes that calculus. To [...]

15 11, 2012

Latest News: Nice Review of Raising Generation Tech

By | November 15th, 2012|Categories: Latest News|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments

I just wanted to share a very kind review of my latest parenting book, Raising Generation Tech: Preparing Your Children for a Media-fueled World, by Dr. Marilyn Price-Mitchell.

14 11, 2012

Parenting: Interesting Article about Raising Prodigies

By | November 14th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

I found this recent NY Times article,Would You Wish This on Your Child? (interesting title!), about the challenging of raising gifted children, interesting and relevant for raising "normal" children as well. It seems like every parent wants a gifted child (just so they can find a job these days!), but there is often a price [...]

15 10, 2012

Parenting/Popular Culture/Technology: Is Facebook Creating a False Self in Your Children?

By | October 15th, 2012|Categories: Parenting, Popular Culture, Technology|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

In my last post, I described how new media is causing the externalization of children’s self-identity. The result of this externalization may be your children developing a false self, in which they internalize the messages of popular culture and media, such as valuing themselves based on their wealth, appearance, or popularity, and those messages become [...]

11 10, 2012

Parenting/Popular Culture: Media’s Externalization of Your Children’s Self-identity

By | October 11th, 2012|Categories: Parenting, Popular Culture, Technology|Tags: , , , , , , , |11 Comments

“To all of Chris' friends: This is his father. My son carelessly left his account logged in so I decided to snoop around. Upon reading my son's personal information, I would like to clear a few things up. My son is not a ‘gangsta,’ he will not ‘beat a ho’s ass’ and he will most [...]

4 10, 2012

Give Your Children the Gift of an “Unmediated” Life

By | October 4th, 2012|Categories: Parenting, Technology|Tags: , , , , , , , , |2 Comments

I want to provide you with a “big picture” sense of the kind of life that I believe your children should lead during their formative years. This life should result in their developing into children who have both the “old-school” values, attitudes, and tools and the “new-school” skills (i.e., technology capabilities) that will enable them to thrive in the 21st century. Unmediated Life At the heart of this life that I advocate for is that your children should live a largely unmediated life in which they can have direct access to their experiences. When I talk about unmediated, I intend it in two ways. First, so many children these days are forced to view their world through the “lens” of popular culture, whether the things they eat, wear, or play with that have merchandising tie-ins or simply the presence of popular culture in everything they see, watch, read, and listen to. It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to see how these popular culture filters would have a significant impact on how your children come to view themselves and their world. You want your children to see themselves and their lives unencumbered by these lenses, in which they can experience life in a pure and unbiased way, allowing them to decide for themselves on its meaning and how it might affect them. Second, as the research on the astonishing amount of time that children spend in front of screens suggests, so much of their day is spent viewing the world through a screen, whether television, computer, video game console, or smartphone. As I will describe shortly, this mediated experience—a screen is always between them and life—has significant limitations with real implications on their development. You want your children to experience most of their life directly without what are really virtual representations of life as rendered through a screen.

17 09, 2012

Parenting/Technology: Is Your Family’s Relationship with Technology Healthy?

By | September 17th, 2012|Categories: Parenting, Technology|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments

How involved in technology your children are is only half of the equation in its impact on them. The other half, of course, is the degree to which you are savvy in both your understanding and use of technology. The research indicating that children spend, on average, more than 7.5 hours a day in front [...]

10 09, 2012

Parenting: Children’s Immersion in Technology is “Shocking”

By | September 10th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments

What do smoke signals, drums, books, the telegraph, telephone, fax, mobile phones, and the Internet have in common? They have incrementally enabled us to connect with more people and access more information in more rapid, easy, and less costly ways. Each advancement changed our lives in ways manifest and subtle, direct and indirect, predictable and [...]