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TV & Movies

How can I use screen media mindfully with a four-year-old and six-year-old twins?
 How can I use screen media mindfully with a four-year-old and six-year-old twins? 150 150 Mediatrics

Q: My wife and I have twin 6-year-old boys and a 4-year-old boy. Many of the strategies I’ve seen about responsible screen use, digital media, TV, etc. seem herculean for a family like ours. My wife will use commercial-free videos so she can take a break to cook, as well as online videos of volcanoes, jet…

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How can we take a balanced approach to TV if my 2 year old asks for it constantly?
 How can we take a balanced approach to TV if my 2 year old asks for it constantly? 150 150 Mediatrics

Q: My daughter comes home and the first thing she says is, “I want to watch Doc McStuffins.” We try to avoid TV during the week and let her watch it on the weekends. She is 2 now, but before this, she was not exposed to television. If we tell her we don’t watch TV…

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The Mediatrician’s holiday movie-watching tips
 The Mediatrician’s holiday movie-watching tips 150 150 Mediatrics

The holidays can be a great time for families and friends to come together and watch a new or classic movie. This year, theaters are offering movie versions of popular children’s and young adult stories such as Frozen, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Hobbit:The Desolation of Smaug, while many TV stations and streaming…

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Never learning violence.
 Never learning violence. 150 150 Mediatrics

Dear Readers, Last week, the New York Times featured an article entitled “Unlearning Gun Violence”, which discussed the work of an epidemiologist who, after a decade of fighting TB, HIV, and cholera in Africa, returned to a life-threatening epidemic in his hometown of Chicago—violence.  He uses the same techniques that worked in Africa, teaching perpetrators and…

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How can I keep my kids from being frightened by scary media this Halloween?
 How can I keep my kids from being frightened by scary media this Halloween? 150 150 Mediatrics

Q: My kids (10 and 7) have been invited to a number of Halloween-themed parties this year that are being held at their schools and at the homes of a few of their friends. Several of these parties will have scary movies, scary music, and in one case (the school’s) a dramatic reading of a…

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Should apps be part of a library’s story time?
 Should apps be part of a library’s story time? 150 150 Mediatrics

Q: There is a discussion among children’s librarians about including tablets and apps in story times at the library for children ages 2-5 or even younger. The assumption is that apps can and should be one more type of material that supports early literacy development (vocabulary, narrative skills, letter knowledge, phonological awareness, etc.). Some think…

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Are there home school media literacy programs for seven-year-olds?
 Are there home school media literacy programs for seven-year-olds? 150 150 Mediatrics

Q: We are a homeschooling family who has decided to exclude media from our daughters’ lives until they turn 7. Our daughters have never watched TV and have never seen an advertisement, movie, YouTube clip, etc. Our eldest is turning seven in June, and we want to introduce her to media though a media literacy…

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Is it okay for my toddler to watch the same Sesame Street movie over and over?
 Is it okay for my toddler to watch the same Sesame Street movie over and over? 150 150 Mediatrics

Q: What is the consequence of watching the same Sesame Street movie over and over? It's Sesame Street and it's a movie, and it's only about 1 hour long. So it's not TV, it's not computer, it's not passive. We watch it together and we interact throughout it, with singing and dancing along. My daughter…

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My daughter is upset by Justin Bieber’s behavior, how can I help her cope?
 My daughter is upset by Justin Bieber’s behavior, how can I help her cope? 150 150 Mediatrics

Q: My 12-year-old daughter is devastated by what has been happening with Justin Bieber. She has been a fan of the pop star “forever” and she and her friends fervently follow his career and personal life. I originally supported my daughter’s obsession (allowing her to buy his music, hang posters in her bedroom, attend a…

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My 10-year-old-daughter was frightened by a pornographic video, what do I do now?
 My 10-year-old-daughter was frightened by a pornographic video, what do I do now? 150 150 Mediatrics

Q: My 10-year-old daughter had a sleepover with 3 friends. It turns out that one of the girls brought a smartphone and pulled up some porn. My daughter is still quite traumatized by what she saw, and my husband and I are trying to figure out how to counsel her. The girls saw three explicitly pornographic…

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