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Home › Articles › Parenting Strategies › Managing the Media

Managing the Media

Limiting Exposure to Adult Issues in Preteen Lives

By Teri Brown

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Levin also says it's important that parents be educated about youth culture. "Many times, parents are the least educated about what their children are listening to," she says. "Parents will listen to one of the songs their preteen's listen to and will think its OK because they don't know what certain words mean. Believe me, the kids know what those words mean."

Finding the Right Balance
Parents need to find the right balance with their children somewhere between putting their foot down all the time and allowing too much. While parents don't want to compromise their own beliefs, neither do they want to cut themselves out of the picture by being too strict, especially if their children are being exposed to the offending lyrics or images elsewhere.

"While it's perfectly OK to forbid certain things in your own home, you want to be careful to not to be too judgmental about it," says Levin. "You want to have the kind of relationship with your child that will be conducive to open-ended dialogue about the things they are exposed to."

Linda Sonna, Ph.D., child psychologist and author of The Everything Tween Book: A Parent's Guide to Surviving the Turbulent Pre-Teen Years (Adams Media Corporation, 2003), agrees. "Keeping the channels of communication open is essential," she says. "Popular media has a tremendous affect on children. They are being raised in two cultures: their parents' and thatof the media. The latter comes to them directly as well as indirectly from their classmates."

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