Teaching Children to be Safe with Media

My kids are video game, Ipod, tablet- toting kids. They love minecraft and music and playing cute little games on the tablets. Their momma ( me!!!) is a facebook, instagram, blogging kind of gal. Sometimes in the evenings me and my husband will gather with the kids together and we will put youtube on the wii and we will watch old music videos like Simon and Garfunkel, Billy Joel and Dolly Parton. I read my Scriptures every morning on my android Scripture App and in the evenings I read from my real Scriptures. We are a family that likes media… but I am a momma bear when it comes to what media is allowed in our home.

Recently, I kind of realized that my son was sneaking off to his room as soon as he finished his schoolwork. I wasn’t worried, he doesn’t have cable or internet in his room, plus he is very responsible and has been taught well when it comes to what is right and what is wrong to watch, listen to, and read.
I went back to his room to see what he was up to. Oh how I was hoping that he was laying in his chair or on his bed reading his literature book! Alas, I was wrong !! He was playing minecraft, which is an xbox game ( one of the two games he owns on xbox ) and while I approve of the game, it has sparked a big interest in him when it comes to minerals, rocks, etc. I realized he was basically spending every minute of free time playing the game.

It was time for a little lesson on media and making sure that we are balancing our lives so that we get to enjoy all kinds of things that are good and fun. We sat down for FHE and we began by going over again, what was right and wrong when it came to good media. We read from the For The Strength Of The Youth manual about media. I read some snippets from this amazing article on LDS.ORG , and we did a little activity where I read off some things, and the kids said “good” or “bad”… just silly little things. Then we talked about balancing our time, and making sure that we weren’t getting addicted to just one thing. It went pretty well, and Dylan has done well in making sure that even though he is allowed to play a little each day on Minecraft, he will stop and play with other things too, legos, k’nex, hero factory, all that good stuff.
So far things are going well. I’ve also been looking for some other fun things for the family to watch or do, together, and well, I stumbled upon this super fun “show” on YouTube. The Shaytards. Oh yeah, you’ve probably heard of them. I’m a little afraid that we are now all addicted to watching them ! Remember, trying to balance things!!!!

You can visit their YouTube channel HERE
Of course we are blessed in this time and age to have so many Gospel resources available here on the internet and even tv with the BYU channel.
So tell me friends, how do you keep your kiddos safe with media. We live in a crazy world!! But we are also incredibly blessed!
Happy Parenting! Love, JL~