I love when people ask my kids if they receive “homework” and they respond with, “all of our schoolwork is homework since we do it all at home!” Of course just because our kids are not usually assigned homework I would argue that as parents, we need to be diligent to do our homework. As the primary educators of our children, we need to remain alert and aware of what they are being taught. This might sound unnecessary since we are the parent and in control of what they learn although it is amazing to see how many things can slip through the cracks! Now that so much education is Internet-based, the risk of unwanted content entering our child’s mind has increased tremendously. The Internet is not the only problem. Television programs, textbooks, curriculum, and extra curricular activities can also cause issues. Here are four areas where parents can “do their homework” to help protect their children.
Books
Fun books, school books, or any book that passes your child’s hand should be monitored by the parent. Once they hit the teen years, if you have trained them to look out for certain aspects of books that don’t jive with your belief system, then they should, at that point, be able to recognize what is right or wrong so the parent might not need to read through every single page of every book. At this stage, there should be a level of trust. Case in point, our family listened in the car to an amazing series written in the late-1800s. Every book from this author that we listened to was clean, entertaining, and inspiring. When looking for a book for my son to read, I remembered this author so I ordered a book we hadn’t heard of yet. Once he began reading, my son came to me and said, “Mom, I think one of the characters is gay.” I was shocked but I was thankful that he was trained to realize that was against our belief system and that we wouldn’t read that type of story in our home.
Movies
Have you ever heard yourself asking your child in surprise, “where did you hear THAT?” Nine times out of ten it wasn’t some random person in Walmart but rather from a movie. Kids retain movies. Our co-op is filled with kids constantly rehearsing movie quotes with one another! Maybe, as a kid, some movies from the decade that you claim as yours from your childhood (mine is the 80’s!) seemed innocent enough. Yet, as you begin to show these movies/shows to your kids you realize they were not so innocent! Revisit, review, preview, and check parent reviews if you are concerned about a certain show or movie.
Video Games
This goes without saying. Lt. Dave Grossman, one of the primary counselors after the Columbine shooting warns parents that violent video games truly do affect our children. He even has brought the issue before Congress only for the video game industry to try and bring him down. This is a powerful industry and we as the parents need to take control of how much and what our children play.
Outside Classes
Co-op, sports, library storytime and even church are times where we trust our children to others. We need to know what those who are caring for our children are going to be instilling into them! You may be surprised that I mentioned church but, yes, even there you still need to be careful!
