There are so many obvious benefits and opportunities in our media world today that I hate to keep sounding the siren call for balance.  Amid all the new technology, we shouldn’t forget that kids’ brains are busy wiring in behaviors.   The wiring of a child’s brain is entirely experience dependent.  Wiring of behavioral and thinking skills will not happen automatically – it happens because of that child’s experience in his or her environment.  To have a fully rich, thinking brain, a child needs exposure to a broad range of experiences that call on him or her to exercise all their thinking skills.  Remember the “neurons that fire together, wire together.”  The ones that don’t wither away.

Now what got me started?   A new study from England landed in my email box that found that the study group of fourteen year old kids today were better at the quick-fire, instant response answers than fourteen year old kids were in 1976, but when it keep to deeper thinking, problem solving, the 1976-ers beat today’s kids hands down.

What’s changed?   Probably the most obvious is the media world our children live in.   What experiences are kids having that are wiring their brains more than anything else? - the quick fire responses of video games.   And if they do not have problem solving experiences requiring more in-depth, complex skills, then those skills will never wire into their brains.

I am not anti-video games.   What kids need though is balance.  Interactive media can take over kids’ lives and make them very skilled at quick responses.   Critical thinking skills that take deeper, more complex thinking may deteriorate if we don’t give our kids practice in these skills also.  The future will belong to creative problem solvers, not to people who deal in only superficial facts.

How do you think kids can develop more complex thinking skills?

Dr. Dave

I recently received an interesting letter from a middle school math teacher.  A few years ago this teacher did an informal survey of his students.  He wanted to find out how many of his students had TVs in their bedroom and other media habits.  What he found correlated with the national average: approximately 2/3 of his students had TVs in their bedroom and 1/3 did not.  Then he went to his grade book to calculate mean grade point averages for each group.  The non-TV in the bedroom group had a grade average of 3.2, the TV in the bedroom kids had a grade average of 2.3.   Now on the surface it looks like kids with TVs in their bedrooms do poorer in school.    Which on the whole I think is true.  But there is a bigger lesson in this little informal study and this teacher went on to find it.

He looked at his most successful students, including those in an honors math class.  What he found was that irrespective of whether they had a TV in their bedroom or not, (although most did not), these kids had parents who said “no”, put limits on their kids media use, enforced homework time and a regular bedtime, and had high expectations.  Unsuccessful kids, also irrespective of bedroom TVs, tended to spend little or no time on homework, frequently stayed up past midnight, excessively played video games, and heard “no” from parents much less frequently, if at all.  He found that many of these kids could succeed, but lacked motivation and the self-discipline needed for school success.

Now researchers could immediately poke a thousand holes in this little study, but that’s not the point.  This teacher resonated with the Say Yes to No message because of what he sees in his classroom every day:  the values of More, Fast, Easy and Fun have, for many kids, overtaken the character traits of self-discipline and the ability to say “no.”   This teacher is worried not only about individual kids’ futures, but our country’s future also.

Dr. Dave

A study published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that the Internet and cell phones, for many families, bring them closer together.   Even a decade ago we would say good-bye to each other in the morning and not see each other until the evening to catch up on the day’s news.   Today, this is more and more a rare occurrence.  Texting, voice mail, Twitter, and email all enable us to have instant contact with those we love.

For couples, being able to have touchpoints during the day and being able to keep connected with busy schedules is a life-saver.  We wonder what we did before cell phones.   For kids, with their still developing brains, this explosion of ways to keep in touch not only with their parents, but more importantly, for them, with their friends is nothing short of a miracle.  Used to be you had to fight for time on the family phone, leashed by a cord to a wall.  Now communication is anytime, any place.  What’s not to love?  The number one reason parents buy a cell phone for their child is for safety, so they can connect any time they need to.  Does this bring families closer together?  Of course it does.  If I’m talking to my child several times a day, even by cell phone, that certainly makes me feel closer.  I can ask who they are with, what they are doing, and where they are.  The old late excuses don’t work any more.  You can always call.   

When does cell phone use for kids stray into the gray zone?  Do kids really need to text message?  Should they have access to their cell phone any time of the day?   Cell phones, like anything else costs money - money that the parent spends now, but also money that someday the child will have to pay.  Once time and money is involved then responsible use is the goal.   Installing controls on a child’s cell phone to limit use will help that child develop the self control necessary to keep that child from being overwhelmed by the “need” to call.   Limiting the number of text messages also prevents kids from getting their brains hooked into impulsive texting.

Do you have controls on your child’s cell phone?  What are they? 

For more information see our Parent Guide to Cell Phone Use.

Dr. Dave

Compulsive video and computer game use sparked a spirited interchange on the Dr. Phil Show last Monday.   Concern about violent video games showed how addiction turns many relationships into a train wreck.  Our MediaWise® work here at the Institute was cited as a leading resource for parents, especially on how violent video games and addiction affect children’s brain development.

Real life folks painfully paint stories of relationships on the rocks because video games or the computer have taken over a person’s life.  When the game is more important than the people or the job, school or other responsibilities in your life, then addiction is the problem.  Intervention with a real honest assessment, perhaps with professional help, is needed.   This is why it is so important for parents to carefully teach their kids self-control when it comes to video games.  Limit their use.  Help your kids to be able to say “no” and choose another activity.   Good video games are fun and they can be highly addictive for some kids.  If kids don’t develop the self control they need when they are young, it may be impossible for them to say no when they get older and on into adulthood.  At that point relationships, jobs and school are at risk.

If you or someone you know is at risk see our resources for video game addiction.

What rules do you have for video game use in your home?

Dr. Dave

Say Yes to No book reads and campaigns are popping up around the country and we, at the Institute, are often not even aware.  I was in St. Louis, MO this week, talking to educators, social service people, doctors….people who are concerned and work with kids.   At the community night in Clayton, a community just outside of St. Louis, I found out that their Say Yes to No campaign was soon kicking off and book reads were scheduled around the community.

“Is it too late?”  This is a frequent question of parents of teens.  One parent with a fifteen year old daughter told me she gives her daughter whatever she wants.  I asked her: “If your daughter gets whatever she wants now, what will happen to her when she is out on her own?  Are you preparing her for life?”   The mom responded, “No and  I am going to have to change some things, if she’s going to be able to cope.   Is it too late?”

My answer was that it’s never too late.  It’s easier for you as a parent and for your child if you start when they are young – but it’s never too late to help your child learn the character skills he or she needs to be a successful, independent adult.   

With a teen, you need to do some planning, goal setting, and have lots of conversations.  Think of the top three areas where you need to say “no.”  Write down your reasons for saying “no.”  The top reason might be: “I’m not going to continue giving you everything you want.  My job, as a parent, is to prepare you for the real world and the real world will not give you everything you want.”   A helpful activity to do with your child, is to list all the things your child wants and then talk about and decide which of these things are real needs and which are extras.   (And just because everyone has them or it’s “in”, or popular, does not make it a need.)   The extras can be saved for a future birthday or holiday gift, or your child might need to save up for it.  Doing this will help your child learn to say “No” to themselves.  In their future, it might save them from running up mountains of debt on credit cards and financial ruin.  Our current national financial mess has its roots in too many people not being able to say “No” to themselves.  It’s a character trait that has to be learned.   

Dr. Dave

400 parents and community members in Orono, MN gathered to hear a Say Yes to No presentation.  Starting this week No book reads will start throughout the district.  The early childhood community (ECFE) is organizing reads for parents of preschoolers through teens.

Support continues to be voiced by business and higher education leaders throughout the country.  A business leader in Sarasota, Florida, when he saw the list of my termed “Discipline Deficit Disorder” symptoms, realized the cause of our current financial meltdown is the end result of More, Easy, Fast and Fun.  DDD symptoms include:
impatience, inability to delay gratification, sense of entitlement, rampant consumerism, unrealistic expectations.

Recently in South Bend, Indiana, one of the parents, also a college professor at Indian University lamented that he could see the impact of More, Easy, Fast and Fun in his college classrooms every day.  He felt that our economic competitiveness depends on our kids re-learning some of the Say Yes to No character traits that will lead them to success.

How do you think that Say Yes to No will help kids and families?

Dr. Dave

Nineteen years ago in Allen County, Indiana, Judge Pratt and his assistant Kathy Rausher had an idea to bring together community leaders on behalf of kids.  Judge Pratt was a Juvenile Court judge and his idea reflected his view that the community could intervene on behalf of kids and work to prevent them from having to end up in Juvenile Court.

The first meeting drew 100 people.  Nineteen years later 650 community leaders gathered at the convention center in Fort Wayne, the county seat of Allen County.  Last Thursday, I made my fourth visit to what is now the Great Kids Make Great Communities conference.

Judge Pratt and Kathy Rausher’s idea has become a year round movement with a dynamic full time leader, Megan Kelly.  This year every one of the 650 leaders received a copy of No: Why Kids – of All Ages - Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It.  The Say Yes to No campaign was launched in Allen County.  Book reads will take place throughout the county.  As Judge Pratt said, “Say Yes to No is what kids need today for success and happiness.”

Tell us about your Say Yes to No campaign.

Dr. Dave

How children pay attention is one of the more perplexing issues for parents.  A common question I hear from parents is “My son is glued to his video game (or TV screen) for hours.  I have to pry him away.  Yet at school, the teacher tells me my son has trouble focusing on his work.  He can focus – is he not trying at school?”

The answer to this question lies in the brain.  The ability to pay attention is really divided into two systems that are wired differently in the brain.  The first attention system is reactive.  It’s based in the emotional center of the brain.  This attention system is passive and involuntary.  The brain is hard-wired from birth to pay attention to movement and stimulation.  We don’t need to learn this.

The second attention system is focused.  It’s based in the executive center of the brain.  This attention system must be trained and developed to work effectively.  We do not get this type of focused attention automatically.

Now guess which attention system is in play when a child plays video games or watches TV.  Yep, you guessed it – the reactive system.  It is hard-wired into a child’s brain to pay close attention to things that move.  Their survival from an evolutionary standpoint depended on it.  So any type of media activates reactive attention found in the emotional center of the brain.  If this movement is stimulating (and engaging as video games and TV shows are) then we also have a positive emotion attached to it which is reinforcing and wants us to do more.

Guess which attention system is needed for the types of higher order thinking and learning that takes place in school.  Yep, you guessed right again – the focused system.  The trick here is that this attention system needs to be trained in a child, one small step at a time from the moment of birth.  Media will interrupt the training of focused attention if an electronic screen is on around a child.  When that child reaches school, if the focused attention system has not been developed, attention issues may arise when that child needs to focus his or her attention on learning to read, write or think.

What activities do you think help develop focused attention in children?

Dr. Dave