Implement Media Education at Home

Implement Media Education at Home (Photo by Robo Wunderkind on Unsplash.com)

Media education for children aged 2-6 is specific. It is not focused on children choosing and understanding media on their own. Instead, it aims at specific rules set by parents regarding their children's media consumption and at children's habits of interpreting the meaning of particular media content together with their parents.

For children in this age group, it is the parents' task to control and navigate children's online activity and engage in co-viewing with their kids. Co-viewing helps children to pay more attention to the media and increases the potential that children will learn from video content.

It is recommended that parents are cautious about their children's potential online activities. Active mediation is when parents talk about the internet, share online activities with their children, and let them explore the internet. Active mediation is not only connected to lower risk exposure but also to an increase in online skills. Parental active mediation can also improve the cognitive and social development of their children.

Learn More

Read the article with recommendations for healthy use of technology entitled Digital guidelines: Promoting healthy technology use for children. Highlight listed points (Don’t overreact; Teach kids about technology from a young age; Use your judgment; Protect bedtime; Pay attention; Teach good online behavior; Discuss digital decision-making; Foster real-life friendships; Learn more). Add an explanation for each point, focusing on the age group of children 2-6 years old.

Watch the video CareMount Conversations: Create a Family Media Plan about the importance of media plans. Look at the Media Plan Checkbox to get familiar with ways parents can improve the quality of their children's media use. Look at the Media Plan Creator to get an idea of how to help parents to approach media use mindfully based on their own values and possibilities.

Watch the video #GoodDigitalParenting Episode 1 about online safety. You can play the video to parents as an introduction to the topic.

For more articles and resources you can go to the Family Online Safety Institute website (www.fosi.org) - Tools and Resources for Parents tab. Choose some that you find most interesting.

For more information on co-viewing read the section The importance of co-viewing on page 7 in the document What Do We Know about Children and Technology? by OECD.

Exercise

Based on the recommended study materials prepare the following:

point out why it is important to create a family media plan

prepare an exemplary media plan for one family with children aged between 2 to 6 years
formulate why it is important to start talking about online safety in early childhood
make recommendations for parents on how to talk about online safety with children

What you learn in this course

State which elements belong to media education and name them.
Reproduce and identify forms of guidance and support in media use and media consumption.
On the basis of the knowledge acquired in modules 1 and 2 in this course on media use and media perception, allocate guidance and support services for children between 2 and 6.
Name methods with which media (and their use) can be explored by children of this age group.
Define media use times for the age group and name and correctly allocate advantages and disadvantages.
Define general rules in the family and guide parents to translate and formulate rules for their own family.

Get ready: Tips for MediaParent consultants

Children aged 2-6 years are not yet prepared to choose and critically evaluate media on their own. Parents should be actively involved in the process of their children's media consumption – they should co-view content with their children and provide necessary explanations and answers regarding media content. You can find out more about specific parental practices and strategies as co-viewing and active mediation in the document Parental Mediation Strategies & Media Education Practices attached in the previous module.

Children aged 5-6 are beginning to understand abstract terms relating to the media. For their parents, it is possible to introduce additional questions that they can discuss with their children to teach them about various media elements. Some of the questions are available in the reading material from the first module Media Literacy in Early Childhood Report on page 13 in the section Tips for Adults. On pages 11-12 you can find tips for children aged 3-4. You can also provide parents with additional questions - Key Questions to Ask When Analyzing Media Messages: Adaptations for Early Childhood Education.

Resources

Links

Digital guidelines: Promoting healthy technology use for children
https://www.apa.org/topics/social-media-internet/technology-use-children

Tools and Resources for Parents (fosi.org).
https://www.fosi.org/tools-and-resources-for-parents

Media Plan Creator
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/media/Pages/default.aspx

Videos

Documents

What Do We Know about Children and Technology? (OECD)

Media Literacy in Early Childhood Report (p. 11-13)

Key Questions to Ask When Analyzing Media Messages: Adaptations for Early Childhood Education

Media Plan Checkbox by AAP