Website Helps Parents Manage the Influlence of Media on Children

Kids of all ages are spending more time than ever consuming media – including video games, mobile devices, music, social media, TV and movies.   Research by Common Sense Media found that teens spend nine hours per day on media and technology on average, not including time spent in school.  While consuming media, kids are exposed to information and images that can affect their attitudes about sex, friends, body image, bullying, alcohol, drugs and violence.

Most parents believe that their kids spend too much time in front of screens and wonder how much screen time is too much.  According to Dr. Michael Rich, pediatrician, founder and director of The Center on Media and Child Health at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, “The reality is they are using it and we have to start directing our concern from how much they’re using it to what they are doing with these media and then what context they’re doing it because so many schools, so many of our communities are now building themselves around a technology that is able to facilitate those activities, that the concept of screen time is really obsolete.”

To help parents navigate this new media reality, researchers from The Center on Media and Child Health created a website to provide information and resources on the positive and negative health impacts of media at different ages and advice on how to use media in a way that is most beneficial for children.  The website can be accessed at this link: http://cmch.tv/parents/

The site has useful tip sheets on Media, Media Addiction, Media and Substance Abuse and Media and Sexual Behavior. Parents can also ask Dr. Rich questions regarding media and their child through the website at the Ask the Mediatrician page found at http://cmch.tv/parents/askthemediatrician/