Media Violence & Children at Home

Protecting children from exposure to violence in the media is a critical role for parents. As with many activities involving children's health and well-being, parents need to learn the facts about media violence, examine how their own media habits might affect their children, and help their children develop critical skills to experience media in healthy ways. Parents can:

• Monitor what children watch.
• Teach children how to analyze the media and become educated media consumers.
• Show by their own behavior how to be good media consumers.
• Share their rules about exposure to media with other adults in the family or neighborhood.
  

Parents can encourage children to seek alternative physical or educational activities to reduce their daily exposure to media as entertainment. They can also talk with children about violence in the media and teach them important lessons, such as:

• Violence in the media is make-believe, not real.
• Real-life violence hurts people.
• Guns, bullets, knives, and other weapons on TV are fake; real weapons hurt or kill people.
• If a show is scary or confusing, talk to your parent or another adult about it.
  

Also, parents can teach children that violent toys may seem exciting in "pretend" games, but that real-life violence is not fun. Parents can encourage children to pretend and play in ways that don't involve violence.