Talking to kids about gender stereotypes
Images of men and women in the media are often based on stereotypical roles of males and females in our society. Because stereotyping can affect how children feel about themselves and how they relate to others, it's important that they learn to recognize and understand gender stereotypes in different media.
Comparing Real Families to TV Families - Lesson
In this lesson, students learn how the media construct reality by studying the families portrayed on television, and comparing them to the real-life families they know: their own, and those of their peers.
Introducing TV Families - Lesson
This lesson encourages children to explore the differences between their real families and TV families by imagining how their own families might be portrayed on a television show.
Helping kids cope with media coverage of war and traumatic events
The intense media coverage that accompanies traumatic events, such as war, acts of terrorism and natural disasters, can be very disturbing. Certain young people are particularly vulnerable and some can be seriously distressed simply by watching replays of such events.Parents, educators, health practitioners and others who work with kids can help to lessen anxieties arising from the coverage of catastrophic events.
Girls and Boys on Television
In this lesson, students discuss television programming aimed at children and how girls and boys are portrayed in it. Students illustrate what they dislike about portrayals of girls or boys and then create their own TV character who will counter the illustrated negative portrayals.