Parents' Evening on the Topic of Advertising and Children

Getting Started

Parents' Evening on the Topic of Advertising and Children

In the previous four modules you have learned more about advertising and children, their perception of the ads, as well as the importance of media education and the role of parents. In this module we will show you how to pass on this knowledge to parents in a parents' evening.

Apart from some organisational tips, which were already part of the basic course 1 in detail, the focus of this module will be on structuring your content as well as exchange and communication with parents.

Learn More

We have presented the process mentioned here as an example and in detail in the document Parents Evening on Advertising. Use this as a basis to develop your own content.

Start planning

Start with the organisational preparations for the parents' evening. Go back to the basic module Planning a Media Educational Parents' Evening to use the materials shown there. Also, use our planning sheet to prepare systematically.

Find your topic

Use the steps shown in the chapter Conducting a Media Educational Parents' Evening:

Think about the overall aim of your parents' evening.
Derive the key points of your parents' evening from this objective.
Choose two or three sub-issues to focus on during your parents' evening.

Inform parents about your parents' evening

Once you have found your topic for the parents' evening, booked and set a venue and a date, it is time to inform parents about your parents' evening. We have created a template for an invitation in our document section.

Finish your presentation:

Organise your topics in a meaningful way and prepare them visually. You are welcome to use the presentation template we have prepared.
Put special focus on the introduction and conclusion.
Give the parents a handout, an example can be found in the documents section.

Engage parents

In order to positively influence the atmosphere and cooperation at the parents' evening, it is advisable to start with an activity that loosens up the atmosphere. This is called an icebreaker. Icebreakers can be used to help the group get to know each other better, but also to explore the interest and expectations of the topic. The key to success is to make sure that the activity is specifically focused on meeting your objectives and appropriate to the group of people involved.

See the icebreaker examples on the Mindtools website. The suggestions for topic explorational icebreakers are well suited for thematic parents' evenings.

Involve parents actively in the evening through exercises and support them in questioning their own position on children’s exposure to advertisements. To do this, use the exercises and tips we have compiled for Media Parent Consultants at the end of each course.

Ask for feedback

Be sure to ask parents for feedback on your parents' evening. Use our feedback document as a basis.

Exercise

Plan a (fictitious) parents' evening on the topic of advertising. Use the guidelines of the document Parents Evening on Advertising and Children and derive the content structure for your topic analogously.

Also use the accompanying documents such as the planning sheet to plan your parents' evening.

What you learn in this course

You'll be able to formulate subtopics of a parents' evening on the topic "Advertising and Children (7-12 years)".
You can name the elements of a parents' evening on this topic.
You'll be able to describe methods for conducting a parents' evening on this topic.
You'll be able to compile the topic and the methods of a (fictitious) parents' evening with the help of the knowledge from course 1 (Basic) and course 7 (Advertising 7-12).
You can name and correctly allocate the fields of application of the additional materials.
You can use the additional materials in a target-oriented way.
You'll be able to plan a (fictitious) parents' evening on the topic "Advertising and Children (7-12 years)" with the help of the checklists and the planning sheet from course 1.
You can use additional materials and show possibilities for change.

Get ready: Tips for MediaParent consultants

Not sure how to involve parents during your lecture? You could do one of the following exercises:

Exercise 1:

Divide parents into groups of 3-4. Let each of them go through the most common advertising strategies from https://raisingchildren.net.au/toddlers/play-learning/screen-time-media/advertising-children . They should discuss the following questions:

Which advertising strategy/ies do you recognise the most?
Which one do you think your child will find the most appealing?
After reading about the strategies will you and your family change your behaviour and habits to limit the children exposure to advertisement?
What steps would you take in this respect?

After about 20 minutes, let the groups share the main points of their discussions together. Highlight and list the most frequent tips and ideas on the flipchart.

Exercise 2:

Encourage parents to:

Define criteria for suitable parental monitoring of advertising towards children at this age
Go to the website www.commonsensemedia.org and check other examples of strategies and methods, used by marketing companies to attract, and make loyal consumers the children at this age group. Compare the two sources.

Summarise all ideas (debriefing) on the flipchart, draft conclusions and invite parents to discuss the results. See the file Conducting debate, which contains tips on conducting and organising a debate.