“When people bend to pressure to exclude others, they also pay a steep personal cost. Their distress is different from the person excluded, but no less intense,” said Richard Ryan, psychology professor and co-author of “Hurting You Hurts Me Too: The Psychological Costs of Complying With Ostracism.” The study found that the distress comes from feelings of “shame and guilt, along with a diminished sense of autonomy,” Nicole Legate, lead author, because “we are social animals at heart. We typically are empathetic and avoid harming others unless we feel threatened” (which says something about bullies too).

But even observing social cruelty exacts a psychological price, an earlier study at Brunel University in the UK found. “Bystanders are significantly affected by the bullying they witness or hear about, so much so that they may be at an increased risk of self-harming behavior,” wrote Prof. Ian Rivers. “The single most significant predictor of suicide risk among bystanders was found to be powerlessness [emphasis his].” He and colleagues also found “higher rates of absenteeism and substance abuse, along with depression and anxiety among school pupils who had witnessed bullying.”

All of which points to the importance of agency and community as well as empathy: empowering all school community members, especially students, with the understanding that each one is key to the well-being of each other as well as the community as a whole. The authors of the University of Rochester study wrote that their findings suggest “that the psychological costs of rejecting others is linked primarily to the thwarting of autonomy and relatedness.” How important it is, then…

• Not to represent young people as potential victims, as has typically been done in bullying-prevention and Internet-safety messaging.
• To give them and all involved the tools to be active contributors to their community’s well-being.

The powerlessness Dr. Rivers’s work turned up in bystanders points to those needs too. It’s what is mitigated by the agency of what scholars and game designers refer to as the self-determination theory, which says “people across cultures have basic human needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness and meeting these hard-wired needs leads to greater happiness and psychological growth,” according to the University of Rochester researchers. Interesting: I’m seeing more and more points of intersection between social literacy, safety, school, and good game design (see the links just below).

Related links

• “What Net safety can learn from digital game design”
• “What does ‘safe’ really look like in a digital age?”
• “Less bullying fear at school: Fresh federal data”
• Ed DukelBlau, founder and director of the Institute for Emotionally Intelligent Learning, tells schools that social literacy training isn’t adding to their plate, it IS the plate – see “Invaluable social literacy lessons from an anti-bullying conference.”
• “More signs that what works offline works online too”
• “Wisdom about bullying from a former target”
• “Social literacy up, social problems down in Chicago schools”

The post Hurting others hurts us: Study appeared first on ConnectSafely.

Based on my more than 15 years as a NCMEC board member*, I am quite sure that the actual images will not be viewable to individuals other than those who work for law enforcement, NCMEC and other agencies authorized and required to view such images as part of an investigation.

The search giant said that it’s committing $5 million towards the fight against child porn which includes creating a $2 million Child Protection Technology Fund to encourage the development of additional tools to fight child porn along with contributions to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the United States and the Internet Watch Foundation in the UK. NCMEC will receive $1 million for use in the United States.

Some things shouldn’t be shared or found

In a blog post, Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google Giving said that her company is ”in the business of making information widely available, but there’s certain “information” that should never be created or found.”  She said “We can do a lot to ensure it’s not available online—and that when people try to share this disgusting content they are caught and prosecuted.”

Google is one of several tech companies lending a hand in the fight against child pornography. Microsoft has developed “photo DNA,” that can help match newly uncovered images to other images even if they have been slightly modified (prior to photo-DNA even a single pixel change could prevent a match).  The  technology is being used on Facebook to identify any child porn that might be posted on the service which is not only removed but turned over to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children which brings in law enforcement when content is found to be illegal.

UK Gov’t adviser John Carr congratulated Google

Praise from child protection groups

In an interview, John Carr, an Internet safety advisor to the UK government said, “Finally the question of child pornography on the Internet is gaining some real traction and Google, with its huge investment, is to be congratulated for helping to bring that about.” He said that he hopes this will “lead to fewer images being available and fewer offenders.” Last month Carr publicly called on Google to take action after two child murderers were convicted in the UK who both reportedly used Google to look for child pornography and information about harming children.

“Once again, Google continues to demonstrate its commitment to combat the distribution of online child pornography,” said John Ryan, CEO, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.  “ For those child victims featured in these horrific images, Google’s cutting-edge technology will assist in minimizing their continued re-victimization.  We value our long-standing partnership with Google in our mutual efforts to protect children.”

Images of children being abused

Child pornography, also known as “child abuse images” is a general term that refers to images or videos of children big sexually abused or engaged in lewd sexual behavior. It is against the law in the United Stats and many other countries.  The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC’s) Cybertipline received 17.3 million images and videos of suspected child abuse in 2011 which is four times more than what their Exploited Children’s Division (ECD) saw in 2007.  These are images of real children being victimized not only when the images are captured but every time they are distributed and viewed. What’s more, the images, according to NCMEC are sometimes used “to coerce, entice or manipulate other children into performing sexually abusive and exploitive acts.”

* Disclosure: I serve (without compensation) on the board of  directors of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and also serve as co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Google, Facebook and other Internet companies.

The post Google unleashes new weapon and millions of dollars to fight child porn appeared first on ConnectSafely.

New report from Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University

A survey of 2,300 parents of children between birth and eight years of age found that “Parents do not report having many family conflicts or concerns about their children’s media use with 78% disagreeing with the statement, “negotiating media use causes conflicts in our home.”  Twenty percent agree with that statement.

The study also found that parents “do not report significant conflicts with their spouses over their children’s media use.”  More than eight in ten (83%) married parents say they usually agree with each other about tech use, while 16% do not.

Negotiating media doesn’t cause conflict in most homes.

These findings are from a report from the Center on Media and Human Development at Northwestern University, titled Parenting in the Digital Age: A National Survey by Ellen Wartella, Vicky Rideout, Alexis Lauricella and Sabrina Connell.

Most parents not concerned

While 56% of parents say they are not concerned about their children’s use of media, only about a third say they are very: (13%) or somewhat (17%) concerned.

The study found that, even though many parents are equipped with smartphones (70%) and tablets (42%), “the vast majority of parents (70%) “do not think the devices make parenting  easier, compared to 29% who say they do.” Thirty eight percent of parents who own both a smartphone and a tablet say the devices do make parenting easier.

Among parents of 0–8 year-olds, percent who agree/
disagree that “smartphones and tablet devices make all 
parenting easier”

Putting media use concern into perspective

The researchers asked parents to rate various concerns they have about their children and, when it come to media use, only 31% said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned.  Media use came in sixth place behind Health and safety (45%), fitness and nutrition (41%), social and emotional skills (39%), school performance (33%) and literacy skills (32%). I might add that media use actually impacts several of those other concerns.

Interactive tech not being used to babysit

The study also found that while parents do use technology to manage daily life “books, toys, and other activities are used more often.” And most parents aren’t using technology as an electronic baby sitter. “Parents say they are more likely to use books, toys, and other activities when they need to keep children occupied than they are to use TV; and they are much more likely to use TV than to use mobile media devices.”

And when it comes to young children, it’s common for parents and children to use technology together.  Nearly a third of parents say that when their child is watching TV (32%), using the computer (29%), or playing on a smartphone (29%), the parent is watching or playing along with them “all or most” of the time.

Parents do worry about the impact of technology on their kids physical activity. Sixty-one percent of parents say video games have mainly a negative effect on physical activity compared to 58% who say that about TV, 57% about computers and 54% about mobile devices.

Positive about media use

Parents were more positive than negative about the affect of media on their children’s academic skills. On reading skills, 38% were positive about TV compared to 25% who were negative. Computers fared better with 59% positive and only 9% negative. Parents were less enthusiastic about mobile devices (37% positive and 21% negative) while video games came in at 21% positive and 35% negative.

Source: Parenting in the Digital Age: A National Survey

My take

My interpretation of this survey is summed up by the title of this post.  For the most part, parents are “alright” about how their young children are using media. Personally I think that’s real progress. Over the past few years we’ve had a steady diet of moral panics from media, politicians and some scholars over the “dangers” of too much media.  The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended zero screen time for children under two and less than two hours a day for older kids and, in its policy, lumps “TV and other media use” into a single category as if the actual activity or program doesn’t matter. While it’s hard to quarrel with the AAP’s conclusion that “children need positive interaction with other children and adults,” that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t benefit from use of electronic media as well.  From the looks of this survey, it appears that parents are being smart and understanding that — in moderation — watching appropriate TV shows and interacting with apps and devices can be a positive part of early childhood activity.

For more about this study, see my ConnectSafetly.org co-director’s post, Parenting the littlest media users: Important study

The post The parents are alright about young children’s use of media appeared first on ConnectSafely.

What does concern those parents is the impact of lots of screen time on kids’ health – “the negative impact screen time has on kids’ physical activity levels. More than 60% said video games result in less movement by their children, with similar proportions saying the same about TV, computers and mobile devices,” US News reports. The authors themselves wrote that parents “are more likely to find a positive than negative effect of media and technology on many of their children’s academic skills.”

Family media use very individual

But it’s so individual from family to family, both the report and author, professor and tech parenting expert Lynn Schofield Clark indicate. Dr. Clark, who attended the release event in Washington, had an important take-away: “We don’t all experience media in the same way.” For some families in some neighborhoods, for example, staying inside playing video games might be safer than playing outside.

In her post about the report in PsychologyToday.com, she points to what I think of as an ideal approach to parenting where media’s concerned: “an ethic of respectful connectedness,” Clark calls it. “To the extent that media can help parents and family members to stay connected and to remain respectful of who they are and where they’ve come from, media can be seen as useful and helpful in relation to family goals.”

Less is better? It depends

So far in the digital age, our society tends to believe less media is better, but “not all parents can engage in the kind of concerted cultivation activities hat tend to make media use lighter,” Clark writes. Families “may face economic, health, language, or job- or transportation-related challenges…. ‘Helicopter parenting’ and concerted cultivation are rooted in the idea that young people can achieve and improve their lives through participation in existing societal structures, whether that’s school, sports or the arts. But while families facing greater economic challenges hope that these things will help, they don’t trust that they will [emphases hers]. They look to their families, neighborhoods, friends and communities to help their children develop the resilience they will need to face the challenges of racism, prejudice, and structural inequalities.”

Clark cites the view of Prof. Vikki Katz at Rutgers University, “who has studied Latino immigrant parents and their children” and said at the conference that “it’s important not to pathologize families who have economic struggles. They have the same goals as the rest of us when it comes to wanting the best for their children and in their hopes for the ‘American dream,’ and those of us working in areas of policy, research, and industry need to seek to provide support for them on their own terms.”

Some other interesting findings

• Tablets not babysitters: I’ve often heard it said that, when parents are busy, they just hand kids a smartphone or tablet. Not true. This study shows that they’re “more apt to turn to toys or activities (88%), books (79%) or TV (78%). Of parents with smartphones or iPads, only 37% reported being somewhat or very likely to turn to those devices.”
• Early media independence: Lots of parents use media with young children, the authors report, “but this ‘joint media engagement’ drops off markedly for children who are six or older.”
• Parenting no easier. These parents use digital devices a whole lot, but most (70%) “don’t think they’ve made parenting any easier.”
• Socio-economic differences: Families with incomes of $25,000 or less are more likely than families with incomes of $100,000 or more “to turn to TV for educational purposes” – 54% vs. 31%, respectively. It may have something to do with language, I think, that the researchers found that “lower income parents are also more likely to think TV has a ‘very’ positive effect on children’s reading (23%, compared to 4% among the higher-income group) as well as their math and speaking skills.” The authors add that “similar differences are found in parents’ views about the positives and negatives of computers as well,” which makes me wonder if “computers” means the Internet.
• Media time management. Professor Clark recommends that, instead of asking how much screen time is too much, parents might “think about teaching time management” so they can learn develop their own self-regulatory skills. And Prof. Barbara Fiese at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, encourages “healthy habits in the whole ‘family ecology’” of which media is just one part, Clark reports.

The Northwestern researchers divvied the various kinds of media environments that parents have created for their families into three buckets based on quantity of screen time: the 39% of households that are “media-centric” (11+ hours of screen time/day, with children spending 4-5 hours a day on-screen); the 45% that are “media-moderate” (spending just under 5 hours on-screen/day, with children spending just under 3 hours); and the16% that are “media-light” (generally with higher levels of income and education and spending even lower amounts of time with screen media, with children spending under 1.5 hours/day on-screen).

What does all this say about parenting these days? To Lynn Clark, it suggests that “parents will have to prepare children for a world that requires intentional effort as we seek to maintain the bonds that matter most to us.” I’m with her on that and, if I can riff on it a little bit: Successful participation in social media (not to mention school, work and all social spaces in our kids’ futures) is conscious participation. It’s both social literacy and media literacy – a “respectful connectedness,” as Lynn put it, online and offline. It doesn’t only defeat bullying and other anti-social behavior, it develops the kind of protection that’s preventive and permanent – with our children all the time and all their lives – critical thinking and resilience. And we know from the research that it increases academic as well as social success.

[The authors of "Parenting in the Age of Digital Technology" are Ellen Wartella, PhD, Vicky Rideout, MA, Alexis R. Lauricella, PhD, and Sabrina L. Connell, MA. Dr. Lynn Schofield is author of The Parent App: Understanding Families in the Digital Age.]

Related links

• Digital disadvantage: The UCLA Newsroom headlined its press release about this study “Trouble in Paradise,” but its real title is “Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors,” and it’s the first book by researchers at UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of [American] Families.” It’s only a little about media, but co-author Elinor Ochs presented at the Northwestern conference too. Lynn Schofield Clark reports in her blog post about it that “Ochs showed poignant photos of backyards that sat empty as families retreated to separate indoor (and often mediated) activities in the scarce hours at home. In their study, she and her colleagues found that fully half of parents’ leisure time was spent with the television; most families had three TVs; 80% had TV in the parents’ bedroom; and 47% had a TV in the child’s bedroom.” If there’s an opposite to this, it might be what Lynn describes above: not less technology but more “respectful connectedness.”
• More links to Lynn’s work: “From ‘flipped classrooms’ to flipped households” and “Parenting or (digital) public humiliation”
• “Of fearless parenting in this unmapped landscape”
• “Peering thoughtfully through this window into our kids’ lives”

The post Parenting the littlest media users: Important study appeared first on ConnectSafely.

Facebook announced that it is allowing users to create and click on hashtags, “similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest.” A hashtag, which is simply a word preceded by a pound or hash symbol (#) is a way to participate in a public discussion about a topic and allow others to click on or search for the hashtag to find your content. Google+ also hashtags.

Access depends on privacy settings

As with all posts on Facebook, someone’s ability to see what you post (even if you add a hashtag) depends on the who you’ve agreed to share the post with.  So, if you share a post only with friends, then only they will see it If you wish it to be seen by anyone you should click on the little icon below the post and select Public.

Hashtags are clickable and searchable.  I tested it by searching for #NSA and, as I expected, I immediately found posts from friends and even strangers (who had posted to the public) about Natonal Security Agency surveillance tactics.

According to Facebook you can now:

• Search for a specific hashtag from your search bar. For example, #NBAFinals.
• Click on hashtags that originate on other services, such as Instagram.
• Compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results.

(Source: Facebook)

Implications for sharing

Although this is a little change, it has big implications because, with hashtags, Facebook pages can become part of broader conversations.  While it’s certainly possible to use hashtags mainly to share stories among your friends, they encourage users to share more broadly as is customary on Twitter (where the vast majority of users post to the public). One difference between Facebook and Twitter is that Facebook allows you to determine the audience for each post each time you post so it’s pretty easy to have some posts shared with the public and others shared only with friends or friends of friends.

More coming

In the blog post, Facebook said “we will be rolling out a series of features that surface some of the interesting discussions people are having about public events, people, and topics.” So, stay turned for more features designed to encourage public and private conversations around topics.

Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Facebook and other companies.

The post Facebook Adds Twitter-Like Hashtags appeared first on ConnectSafely.

On the one hand: “Parents assess video games more negatively than television, computers, and mobile devices. More parents rate video games as having a negative effect on children’s reading, math, speaking skills, attention span, creativity, social skills, behavior, physical activity, and sleep than any other medium,” write the authors of “Parenting in the Digital Age” at Northwestern (stay tuned for more of their findings).

On the other hand: When asked by the Toronto Globe & Mail about teens’ video game play, Kathy Sanford, author of the Canadian study said:

“What we found [after following a group of 13-to-17-year-old videogamers for five years] was that what they were learning was a whole lot deeper and more profound than we had imagined, or that you can see from watching them. They are doing a lot of problem solving and strategizing. They are learning collaboration and leadership skills. But the most profound thing that got me really thinking about their civic engagement is that they are actively making ethical and moral decisions all the time. They are trying out roles through the characters in the stories. If they act badly, if they choose to be evil, they see the significant results of each of the decisions they make.”

I’ll shortly be blogging about both studies more, but I found this contrast interesting, and I hope parents concerned about frequent media reports about videogames’ negative effects might find some comfort – or at least some talking points for further discussion – in Dr. Sanford’s findings, because she also told the Globe & Mail that “educators and parents need to learn about this world if they hope to connect with kids who are comfortable moving in an alternative landscape.”

Related links

• “Why kids love videogames & what parents can do about it”
• “What Net safety can learn from digital game design”
• “Power of play: A mom & son in World of Warcraft”
• “Unboxing learning”
• “Challenging the idea that games can’t be fun *and* meaningful”
• “The whitewater-kayaking kind of learning needed today”

The post Point & counterpoint on young video gamers: 2 studies appeared first on ConnectSafely.

Sharon – who wrote a wonderful series of guest posts here in NetFamilyNews as Undercover Mom in Club Penguin, Stardoll.com, Poptropica, and BarbieGirls.com in 2009 – is as thoughtful as ever about kids in mobile apps. Don’t miss her thorough investigation into Instagram for Scholastic Parent & Child magazine, with three main points called “lessons” that a lot of parents suspect but would probably like to hear more on (she also offers four brief safety “rules” for underage Instagram use which make a lot of sense). What I love about Sharon’s approach is the balance that parents deserve: She provides both the upsides and the downsides, and she’s not out to scare anybody. That’s real child and parent advocacy.

Some how-to’s from our own Instagram guide

Our own Parents’ Guide to Instagram at ConnectSafely.org has a little more detail on what to do if stuff comes up. Sharon mentions hearing from a 9-year-old named “Hannah” that her “first follower was this weird old man” (that would be only one kind of “stranger” any user with a public account could encounter, many also being friends of friends of peers). Sharon asked her what she did, and Hannah said she “deleted him” but he “came back two days later.” In a situation like that, we tell parents in our guide, you can…

“Block someone if necessary. If someone’s harassing you, such as repeatedly tagging you in photos you don’t like, you can block them so they can’t tag you or mention you in comments. They also won’t be able to see your profile or search for your account. To block a user, go to his or her profile and select the Menu button on the top right side, then select ‘Block User.’ (Android users, go to the profile and tap the three small squares, then select ‘Block User.’)”

Relieved but conflicted

We also tell parents how people can untag themselves, manage their profiles, think about privacy, and be a good friend in the app. And we have some closing thoughts about parenting on the mobile platform at the end (page 6 of our short-and-to-the-point guide).

As for Sharon’s undercover experience (the first time I’ve known her to go in cognito in an app), sensible as always, she – probably like most of us – “was left relieved … but also conflicted. The democratic platform of social media means that the ability to censor material or share it on an age-appropriate basis
is nearly impossible.” I appreciated her wisdom in concluding that, though it’s tempting to say no altogether to social media, “as our children grow, our ability to control their interaction with technology shrinks. The best we can do, as parents, is be there, strapped in beside our kids, making the journey down this uncharted digital road together.”

Related links

• “Help with mobile apps kids love” and ConnectSafely’s parents guides to Instagram, Snapchat and other social media
• “Why not a gazillion likes: Getting wise to gamification in social media & life”
• “Kids, Instagram & its new ‘Photos of You’ feature”
• My introduction to Sharon’s undercover work back in February 2009: “Introducing Undercover Mom: Avatar anthropology”

The post Undercover mom on Instagram appeared first on ConnectSafely.

So that said, give yourself 23-and-a-half minutes to watch this profound, deeply loving talk about (non-tech) parenting by Andrew Solomon. It was posted this past week and has already been viewed, as of this writing, 249,520 times. Of particular interest to me in the context of social literacy and identity exploration by young people online and offline was what he says about self-acceptance, family acceptance, and social acceptance.

Solomon’s talking about what he learned during the years of research for his latest book, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity. It’s about parents raising exceptional, in some cases exceptionally challenged, children. Toward the end of the years of interviews and research he put into it, he decided he wanted to start a family, Solomon says in the talk. So people would ask him, “How can you have children when you’re studying everything that could go wrong?” His answer was, “I’m not studying everything that could go wrong. What I’m studying is how much love there can be even when everything appears to be going wrong.”

The post Exploring what parenting & social media are teaching us appeared first on ConnectSafely.

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

My kids, now in there 20s, grew up in the VCR era. Back then, we would record “Sesame Street,” “Raffi” and other shows that they would watch over and over again whenever we let them watch TV. Unlike previous generations of parents, we weren’t chained to a broadcast schedule. We also bought videos and I recall watching the movie, “Follow That Bird” with them so often that I still remember some of the lines.

We had to remember to record our kids’ shows, and the selection was limited. Now parents of young children merely have to login to one of many steaming services or websites for 24/7 access to an incredible array of children’s movies and TV shows.

And kids don’t even have to be home to watch. In addition to being able to stream content to a TV using a Roku, Apple TV, game console or other media player, parents can sit their kids in front of laptops, tablets and even smartphones to watch from virtually anywhere, as long as there’s an Internet connection. For content that’s been downloaded, you don’t even need an Internet connection.

Netflix, which charges $7.99 a month for unlimited streaming, has a kids channel that includes “The Rescuers,” “Curious George,” “My Little Pony,” “Sesame Street” and countless other titles.

As part of a deal announced last week, Amazon’s Prime Instant video service will begin streaming children’s content from Viacom’s cable channels, including Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., MTV and Comedy Central. Kids’ shows will include “Dora the Explorer,” “Blue’s Clues” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

The unlimited video service is included in Amazon’s $79 a year Prime service that also provides for free two-day shipping for most items purchased directly from Amazon. In addition, some of these shows will also be available in Amazon’s Amazon Kindle FreeTime Unlimited package that it offers to Kindle Fire users for $2.99 per month per child or $6.99 for a monthly family pass. Like Netflix, Amazon Prime can be streamed from personal computers, iPads and iPhones and Amazon Kindle Fire tablets. There is, so far, no Android app.

There are several ways to access PBS Kids content

There is also content available for free. PBS Kids‘ website offers a number of videos, including “Clifford The Big Red Dog,” “Curious George,” “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” “Cat in the Hat” and, of course, “Sesame Street.” Kids can also watch PBS Kids content from an iPad or iPhone using the free PBS Kids Video App that features access to more than 1,000 videos from PBS Kids shows. PBS Kids also has a Roku app that allows you to watch shows on a home TV. (Disclosure: I serve, without compensation, on a PBS Kids advisory board).

Nickelodeon’s website has clips from some of its shows, as well as some free full episodes of “Power Rangers Megaforce” and other shows. There are commercials and you can’t skip through them as you can with personal video recorders.

If you know what to search for, you can find plenty of children’s content on YouTube, including shows from a very long time ago. If you search for “YouTube playlist,” you can find instructions for setting up a playlist for the kids to watch.

While streaming is a good choice for many families, there are other options, including downloading videos from iTunes. The bad part is that you’re likely to have to pay for some of the same content that you can stream for free on other services or websites. But once it’s been downloaded, your kids can watch it even if they don’t have Internet access. Unlike some commercial sites, it’s advertising free.

You can find children’s programming in the iTunes store by clicking the down arrow next to TV shows and selecting Kids. There is also a Kids and Family section under the Movies pull-down menu.

Another option is to record kids’ programs on a digital video recorder (DVR). You have to plan in advance but it’s easy to record favorite shows so they’re always available to view. Dish Network’s newest “Hopper” DVR offers the ability to transfer shows from the DVR to an iPad to watch from anywhere, even when you don’t have Internet access.

As with any form of children’s media, it’s important for parents to remain in control, especially with young children. Today’s streaming and download services are just as inappropriate as “electronic baby sitters” as was TV for previous generations. Parents still need to think about what their kids are watching, how much time they’re watching and what else they should be doing — like playing outside, reading or doing homework.

Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody (Creative Commons image)

Also, as my wife Patti reminded me, there was a time when families looked forward to watching certain shows, whether they were Christmas specials, the occasional showings of “Wizard of Oz” or the regular weekly or daily broadcast of the kids’ favorite shows. I still remember the opening line of one popular show, where Buffalo Bob asked “Hey kids, what time is it?” The response from the children in the studio audience was, “It’s Howdy Doody time.” Now that could be any time.

The post A Steady Stream of Online Video for Kids appeared first on ConnectSafely.

His school adopted school-wide social-emotional learning guided by an SEL program called The Ruler Approach based at Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence. Staff there posted this video on YouTube, reporting that, “after reading this poem in public, [Garrett] received a standing ovation from his class, and the bullying ceased.” If educators are considering showing video for class discussion on bullying or peer victimization, consider this one rather than any video purely about victimization, which can be demoralizing and can suggest to students that social cruelty is “normal.” Social norms research shows that when people understand that negative behaviors aren’t actually something that most people or “members of our school community” engage in, whatever negative behaviors there are decrease even more.

For a quick explanation of SEL as a whole, here’s a 3:30 min. video snippet from PBS about it. In it, Yale psychologist Marc Brackett, who created RULER, explains the protective properties of SEL, which leads me to believe that it’s absolutely key to online as well as offline safety and wellbeing. The video shows how powerful it is to learn emotion detection, acknowledgment and management together – how key whole-community buy-in and support are to individual members’ social-emotional well-being, whether they’re children or adults. But about 30 seconds into this video, an elementary-school student explains better than anybody how it works.

Related links

• More about what social norms research has found about what changes behavior: “Kids deserve the truth about cyberbullying”
• “A social media company’s social-emotional learning”
• “What is bullying & what can be done about it”
• “Help for parents of kids dealing with bullying”

The post Wisdom about bullying from a former target appeared first on ConnectSafely.