Advice to Parents on their Children’s Media

For several years now I have carried around a little pocketbook called “One Hundred and One Famous Poems with a Prose Supplement.”  This book has prompted many a conversation as I read a poem or a short prose selection from the book.  The Covid-19 scenario has put a major damper in the number of opportunities for me to bring out this book, as I along with many others have curtailed our social lives.  Being that as it may, I decided to share the following from the book:

In choosing books for children these rules, recently laid down by an author of books for boys, are worth the consideration of parents:
“Read your children’s books yourself.  Or better still, get your boy or girl to read them aloud to you. Ask yourself during the reading:

• Does this book lay stress on villainy, deception, or treachery?

• Are all the incidents wholesome, probable, and true to life?

• Does it show young people contemptuous toward their elders and successfully opposing them?

• Do the young characters in the book show respect for teachers and others in authority?

• Are these characters the kind of young people you wish your children to associate with?

• Does the book speak of and describe pranks, practical jokes, and pieces of thoughtless and cruel mischief as though they were funny and worthy of imitation?

• Is the English good and is the story written in good style?[1]

Although this was written about books, I want to stress that this applies to all media.  What games are your children playing?  What movies are they watching?  What are the teachers teaching them in school?  What are they watching on the internet?  Parents are ultimately responsible for the well-being of their children.  Society should be there to aid the parents in providing a healthy upbringing for our future generation. Ask questions, be involved, it is your duty as a parent.

Read the book yourself, watch them play their game, watch the movie with your children or beforehand, look at the material/textbooks from school, and monitor their internet usage.  Knowledge is the first key.  Do not be ignorant of what your child is consuming in the way of media.  All of this has a profound effect on them and if you care and love them you will take extra precautions to ensure that they receive wholesome media.  Too many have gone with the statement that ignorance is bliss.  It is not and can have devastating effects.  So now you are being aware, what should you look for?

Children are excellent imitators.  If we give them bad examples and show them evil always triumphing over good, they will be led to follow evil tendencies.  Jordan B. Peterson states, “Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.”[2]  If your children develop into someone that you dislike, the odds are that others will also dislike them, and they will have a hard time of it.  No one should want that for their children.  “What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?” Luke 11:11-12.  No good father or mother, that’s for sure.  The same goes with the media our children experience.  As you watch/read over the material your child is partaking of, ask yourself, will this make them a better or a worse person?  What values are embedded in the story?  What may seem cute and adorable at first may have some other meaning associated with it. 

So why is good English important?  It is how we communicate.  It is how we try to understand one another.  If we start blurring the lines and distorting what words mean and how they are perceived it will make it more and more difficult for us to have meaningful conversations with each other.  We will experience a modern Tower of Babel situation where chaos will result. 

Another myth I want to address is the statement, “As long as my kid is reading something, it’s okay.”  NO!  NO! NO!  Okay, I feel pretty strong about this. The information, via media, we take in about the world around us shapes our perspective.  Be very careful with what is being read/watched.  These rules also apply to yourself.  Know what is healthy for you and do that.  Is this book really helping me?  Does this movie/show lead me to better ideals and thoughts to become a better person?  Deep down I think we know when we have sauntered into dark places.

So, I did not intend this piece to become so didactic, but perhaps that was inevitable based on the prose piece I decided to write about.  All I ask is give it some consideration and take responsibility for what media your children are consuming.

[1] Cook, Roy J. (compiler).  One Hundred and One Famous Poems with a Prose Supplement (Revised Edition).  Chicago: Reilly & Lee Publishers, 1958. Page 182.

[2] Peterson, Jordan B. 12 Rules for Life – An Antidote to Chaos.  Canada: Random House Canada, 2018.  Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them (page 113).