Resources for Parents - Television

Talking About the Oscars With Your Kids

The four of us watched the Oscars last night. My youngest went to bed before it ended so the rest of us are feeling rather bleary this morning. I always wonder why they always do it on a Sunday. Don’t they know it’s a school night? Sigh.

How to Talk To Your Kids About Body Image During the Olympic Games

In ancient times the Olympics were a time when all nations – all Greek nations, anyway – would put away their differences and compete in almost every human activity, from poetry to the ferocious no-rules wrestling event called pankration. Being the very best that humans could be was seen as the best way to honour the gods of Olympus. Though we’ve dropped the poetry and the blood sports, people watching the swimming or volleyball events might wonder if we're on the way to bringing back the ancient tradition of competing in the nude. Revealing outfits – like those designed by Lululemon for the Canadian beach volleyball team – may be practical for those events, but they also shine a light on how dressing for sports can make us feel about ourselves. After all, it's hard to feel good about your own body when you've just spent an hour watching the most perfect physiques in the world nearly naked.

News you can use

Online news is one of the hardest things to verify. Sometimes early reports that turn out not to be true still circulate on the Internet, and people may spread false reports for commercial or malicious reasons, or even just for “fun.”

Managing Television in the Home

Television watching 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.

To Binge or Not To Binge

We are Netflix subscribers, and that means we’re no strangers to the Binge Watch. It’s just so easy to curl up on the couch, especially on a rainy day or a sick day, and plug into a show. Each episode plays automatically, one after the other; you don’t even have to move, except to occasionally confirm that you’re still watching when Netflix prompts you, every three episodes or so.