by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on February 19, 2010
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on February 12, 2010
Media expert Michael Rich, MD, MPH, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston, answers your questions about media use. Last week, he discussed speech delays.
Here’s this week’s question:
Q: My daughter is in junior high, and I’m noticing signs of anxiety. She has become more needy of me, is more fearful, will no longer go upstairs alone, and just feels “randomly stressed.” She is a strong, organized student, has good friends, exercises, eats healthily, and (until recently) sleeps well. The only lifestyle red flag I see is that all year she has been reading very dark and intense books that include subjects like hooking up, angels, suicide, after-life, car accidents, and murder (The Vampire Diaries, for example). She starts a new one every 2-3 weeks. Could these books be contributing to her stress even though she likes them, or should I just accept this behavior as part of puberty?
Vexed About Vampires in Glencoe, IL
Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on February 1, 2010
By Brian Skotko, MD, MPP, Clinical Genetics Fellow
Some enthusiasts of the popular film by James Cameron are calling themselves “Avatards.” They are not the first to coin the term. The term has existed for a number of years, self-applied by fans of an animé series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. For many people with disabilities, the term bears chilling echoes of another word—the “R word”—that has come to haunt them in recent years. Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on January 29, 2010
Media expert Michael Rich, MD, MPH, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston, answers your questions about media use. Last week, he discussed a report detailing just how much media kids are using.
Here’s this week’s question:
Q: In your NPR Parents’ Journal interview, you stated that children under the age of 30 months do not learn anything about language from TV programs, but I disagree. My 17-month-old daughter is not allowed to watch entertainment TV, but since she was 9 months old, she has watched a baby signing language DVD series about 3 times a week. Now she knows about 80 signs (and about 60 spoken words), and learning sign language as a family has greatly enhanced our relationships because she can tell us what she needs without crying and throwing a tantrum. I feel strongly that the 1-2 hours of media exposure a week are making her toddlerhood much less frustrating and are worth whatever negative effects are possible. I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter.
-Serious about Signing, Baltimore, MD Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on January 24, 2010
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on January 22, 2010
This week the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report detailing just how much media kids are using.
What’s going on?
A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation confirms that media are a constant presence in kids’ environments:
- Kids spend more time using media than they spend in school: Kids use TV, music, computers, video games, movies and print for a total of 7 hours and 38 minutes a day. Full story »
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on January 17, 2010
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on January 13, 2010
Thank you for your energetic responses both in the comments section here on the Thrive blog and on Children’s Hospital Boston’s Facebook page to my recent post about Call of Duty and other violent video games; this is exactly the type of public dialogue that I was hoping for when I started my Ask the Mediatrician Web site last year. We all use media in different ways and have very personal opinions about the value it brings into our lives, but their use also impacts society as a whole, and my hope is for all of us to continue to question if we’re using them in a beneficial way.
Related to the some of the responses to the post that said I misrepresented some of the things that happen in the game, I acknowledge that, even though I play video games, I have neither the skills nor the practice time to be a great gamer, so Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was demonstrated to me—I have not played it. I used the air terminal scene as an example of the game’s content, about which those of you with greater gaming experience have far more precise information and experience. Full story »
