Managing media in middle childhood (6-9 years old)

Helping Kids Build Safe and Smart Digital Habits

Parents can focus on helping kids this age explore safely by choosing high-quality experiences, setting clear boundaries, and teaching them how to recognize when something feels off.

There are four main strategies to help kids become resilient to online risks. We can:

Curate our kids’ media experiences;

Control who can access our kids and their data;

Co-view media with our kids;

and be our kids’ media Coaches.

Visual Media - Introduction

Visual media, such as art, photos, and movies, use special techniques called "rules of notice" to guide what viewers pay attention to and how they feel about what they see. Understanding these rules helps both creators and those trying to understand the messages in visuals.

Kung fu? In my Karate Kid?

Why is a movie about a young boy learning kung fu called The Karate Kid? For most of the film's young audience, Jaden Smith's break-out movie doesn't explain the confusion. Their parents and older siblings, however, may recall the earlier installments in this series which started with a young Ralph Macchio learning karate from Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, a movie which started as the hero's quest to learn karate to overcome his tormentors and evolved by film's end into a coming-of-age story about the bond between mentor and student. The first Karate Kid struck a chord with audiences, becoming the fifth-highest grossing film of 1984.

Toy Story

Last year in this space we wrote about how summer movies serve as advertisements for various kinds of merchandising. The success of 2007's Transformers and its sequel this summer point to a different but similar trend: making movies that are actually about the toys companies sell.

Spoiler Alert: Avoiding plot leaks in the digital age

I have a duality when it comes to spoilers in the media I consume. 

For movies, like anything in the Marvel universe, or Star Wars, I want to feel the shock, awe and surprise of whatever guest cameo, or plot point, unfolds in the moment. 

Fear Factor

Halloween is perhaps the most contradictory of the major holidays. Though born in Ireland and other Celtic regions, today it is almost exclusively observed in the form that developed in North America; though closely associated with the imagination, it has been thoroughly commercialized, becoming an opportunity for children to buy costumes and then acquire candy (today it is the second largest commercial holiday in the US, after Christmas); and finally, though it is the holiday most closely associated with children, it is also one that has, traditionally, been all about fear.

Talking to kids about media violence

The good news is that violence in media is not directly linked to youth crime or aggression, but it does influence how we see the world. Talking to kids about violence in the media they consume – television, movies, video games, music and social media – can help them put media violence into perspective.

Villains, Heroes and Heroines

This lesson introduces students to the ways that heroes and villains are portrayed in media. It begins with a discussion of real and media heroes and how they are similar or different. Students then compare a number of hero/villain pairs from Disney films and identify how specific visual cues are used to identify characters as being villains. They then consider the impact of representing features of diverse groups, such as larger bodies or disabilities, as being signs of villainy. Finally, students create a prototype for a photo or video filter that will make someone look more villainous.