Benefits of Media for Children and Teenagers

It is the responsibility of parents to provide the right media exposure to kids to get positive impact. Learn the benefits of media for children and teenagers.Most children mimic a character from movie or TV or sing an advertising jingle in a matter of seconds. This apparently shows the impact of media on children and teenagers. The easy access to TV, internet and mobile phones help them experience all kinds of messages, anytime. Media is an important part of our lives today and they offer entertainment, news, culture, sports and education. But, there are certain things available here which are not suitable for children of all age.Some of the messages sent via media can be harmful or have negative impact on your child’s mind. It is the responsibility of parents to help their children understand the messages that they see or hear from different media in a better way. In this articleThe Power of Messages Via MediaMessages from Media Good or Bad? The Power of Messages Via MediaSometimes you will see the impact of some messages created immediately. For example, you can see that your child starts imitating immediately after he watches superheroes in movies or television shows. However, it is not the case with every message. Some of them have the impact but you do not come to know immediately.Children see and hear the message time and again and this enters deep into their minds sometimes. Some of these messages are:Violence used to handle certain situations in films and TV shows.Cool and attractive advertisements of injurious products or junk food shown instead of showing them unhealthy and deadly.Any sexual action without any education about preventing unintended pregnancy or any sexually disease.Messages from Media: Good or Bad? Media messages can have good and bad effects on the minds and lives of your children. You need to restrict his media diet of messages just like you limit some food items in his diet because it is unhealthy. However, deciding whether a TV program, movie or computer game is good for your child or not is difficult. You can use your own judgment or go through the age classification and decide whether it is of high quality, challenging and well made or not. You can get in touch with your child’s teacher to know about what is good for your child because they deal with similar children often.Choose a content that has a good story and does not involve any kind of violence for entertainment.Action mixed drama or including violence in a story with good narrative that how it can be harmful for us can be educational and insightful also.You can also choose TV programs that help your child to explore animals, places, ideas, people, cultures and issues are also worth watching.Movies and programs with role models and related stories can convey good messages.Computer games that are interactive can help your child learn things more effectively.Movies and TV programs can help your child get exposure to ethnic diversity which will have a healthy impact on his mind.Use of avatars can help teenagers create and identify their personalities and try on different psychological characters.Software and websites that encourage and help children with different types of creativity can help express ideas and feelings in a better way.You should start educating and motivating your children when they are very young because most of their media exposure starts from home. Parents can make their children better use of media if they set media time limits and set a media plan for them. This will help them choose and use it carefully.How much media exposure do children need? What is the right kind of media exposure? How can parents help in providing right media exposure? Discuss here.