Resources for Parents - Television

Co-Viewing With Your Kids

One of the most important things you can do to raise media-savvy kids is what’s called shared media engagement. That includes listening to their music, watching TV, movies and videos together, getting to know their favourite apps and playing the games they enjoy. It also includes talking to them about their media lives: what they like, what they’re excited about or looking forward to, and what worries or annoys them. While just being with them is an important step, this is also a great opportunity to help your kids think critically about the media they consume, by asking them questions about it and, sometimes, answering back.

Managing Superhero Play - Tip Sheet

Most young children enjoy pretend play and love to imitate action heroes. But many teachers, parents and child care workers say the influence of children's superhero TV shows or movies, can result in havoc when little fans get together.

Managing Television and Streaming Video in the Home

Watching TV or streaming video should be a fun and relaxing activity for kids and adults alike—but too often it's a source of family conflict. If you're concerned about television, banning it isn't a practical solution. Instead, you need to learn to co-exist with television by managing how much your kids watch, and what. With more and more ways of viewing TV available we now have access to lots of both good quality and inappropriate TV content. In this crowded television environment, the key is to provide young children with a guided viewing experience and to model and teach them the critical thinking skills they need to be active, engaged viewers.

Television - Special Issues for Young Children

Parents of young children need to actively manage and control TV viewing in the home. Children need a variety of activities for healthy development and television can be a fun and educational part of a child's daily routine, if managed properly.

Managing media in early childhood (birth to 5 years old)

Helping Young Kids Explore Media Safely

Starting around age two, children can begin to explore media. The goal is to build healthy, guided habits.

There are four main strategies to help kids do that. 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.