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Children’s Television & Social Aggression

In April of this year a study was released showing that American kids are exposed to four hours of TV per day. There has been for some time growing evidence that large amounts of exposure to media in general has it consequences, and now even TV as background noise is shown as detrimental to the development in young children of cognitive and reading related tasks. The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages children under the age of two from watching television at all and limiting over the age of two to no more than one to two hours per day.

Now in the Journal of Communication it is being reported that when 50 of children’s most popular programs have been analyzed it has been found that 92% of them contain some version of social aggression, bullying. This is the relational kind – including gossiping and manipulation of friendship. It was found that the perpetrators of this kind of aggression were rarely ‘punished’ or called out for their behavior and it was more likely to be presented in a humorous manner than physical bullying.

Is it possible that along with all the other influences that our children have that they are being socialized and taught what is acceptable socially by characters on TV, without parent recognition of what they are taking in?

Now personally, I could not name the top 50 children’s shows on TV. But if you have a young child, could you tell me what the shows are and if you recognize social aggression being displayed on them?

Sources:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112702526/children-tv-social-bullying-09271/

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1112518568/study-american-kids-exposed-to-four-hours-of-tv-per-day/

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Whitney Kropp: Bullied Teen & Community Show Courage

Can you imagine being the person who was nominated to be Homecoming Queen only to be told that it was simply a prank by the ‘popular’ students. The boy that was nominated to be her escort withdrew from the court.

In this case the community came forward to help and to support her as she decided to attend the homecoming no matter, to stand up to the bullying. This took a great deal of courage from a 16 year old. But lets not ignore the others around her that have given support and demonstrated that when a community comes together they can turn a bad situation into one that is supportive.  See the Town Rallies Around Bullied Teen

Everyday in our own community there are many young people who are targets of bullying. Will our community work together to support all of our children? Are we willing to create a culture of peace in the community, starting with our own education about the subject and helping our children learn to focus on friendship?

I invite parents to attend one of our Parent Workshops on Bully Prevention.   They are free and our sole purpose is to bring awareness to what we can do as parents in regard to this issue.

 

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Student Shot at Perry Hall HS – Reminder that we must not ignore bullying

The school year has started and on the first day of the year we have a shooting at a school, with an individual who had allegedly been the target of bullying, taking matters into their own hands, found a gun and shot randomly.   Before you say, Oh that happened in a city school and would not happen with my school let me remind you that it was just 8 days after Columbine that in Canada another shooting took place and 8 individuals were shot.  Many of the parents there also said, This could not happen in Canada – and it did.

This past summer I taught three classes at Anne Arundel Community College for teachers on “Creating a Culture of Peace in the Classroom”. This school year I want to educate the entire community by reaching out to parents on the same topic of Bully Prevention. Each month I am offering a free “Bully Prevention Seminar for Parents” that  will cover the following subjects:

What is bullying?

What are the effects of bullying on all the parties involved?

Why children do not tell?

Six things every child must learn and how to teach them

What to do if your child is the target of bullying.

What to do if your child is the bully.

What to do if your child is a follower.

Have you ever wondered why some schools with the same programs and rules in place have a culture of kindness and others do not?  The Bully Prevention Seminar for Parents will answer this question, and many more.  If you are not able to attend one of the prescheduled seminars and would like to arrange for a different time or location, please feel free to contact us and we will work on making those arrangements.  The first free seminar will be at 9:15 AM on September the 4th at Balanced Life Skills in Annapolis, MD.

Every child deserves to feel safe in school, and it is our responsibility to work together as a team.  Parents, teachers, and the community working to build a culture of peace in the schools.

 

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Bully Prevention Workshops will begin after the holiday

Beginning July 9th we will begin our summer workshops for students in age specific and gender specific classes.  We invite those who have an interest in supporting their child in building relationships, friendship and confidence to join us for this class.  Here is a link to the sign up sheet or you can drop in on the day your age group is meeting.

Focus on Friendship – Bully Prevention Workshop

In the fall we will also be providing short information sessions for parents on bully prevention.

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Keeping Your Child Safe on the Internet this Summer

The summertime offers more free time and our kids are going to want to do things online more than ever.  So what are some guidelines that we can set and how do we keep them safe.  This article that just came out covers this material very well.  It is at the Common Sense Media website.

As for Balanced Life Skills we will be covering age appropriate reminders for students on internet safety in our Focus on Friendship summer workshops for kids.  In this part of the workshop we will be talking to each group about defining the term cyber-bullying, and helping them to see healthy ways to use the computer and safety rules for them to be aware are necessary.   Each age group will be treated appropriately.

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The new Bully Prevention Partners Public site is now available

Announcement: Balanced Life Skills introduces the first in a series of public websites that will address issues that our children, parents and teachers will be interested in following.  The first of this series is Bully Prevention Partners.  This public site will have information for all on it, but will also invite everyone to become a partner in changing the culture of our schools and communities.

Here is the link to Bully Prevention Partners.  Please take a look and let me know what we might be able to add to it to make it more useful for all.  Future sites will cover a number of subjects that we are looking for partners in educating and bringing awareness too.  We look forward to the coming weeks.