Making the moral of the story stick − a media psychologist explains the research behind ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Arthur’ and other children’s TV

This article originally appearded on The Conversation on February 23, 2024.

To adult viewers, educational media content for children, such as “Sesame Street” or “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” may seem rather simplistic. The pacing is slow, key themes are often repeated and the visual aspects tend to be plain.

However, many people might be surprised to learn about the sheer amount of research that goes into the design choices many contemporary programs use.

For more than a decade, I have studied just that: how to design media to support children’s learning, particularly in moral development. My research, along with the work of many others, shows that children can learn important developmental and social skills through media.

History of research on children’s media

Research on how to design children’s media to support learning is not new.

When “Sesame Street” debuted in November 1969, it began a decadeslong practice of testing its content before airing it to ensure children learned the intended messages of each episode and enjoyed watching it. Some episodes included messages notoriously difficult to teach to young children, including lessons about death, divorce and racism.

Researchers at the Sesame Workshop hold focus groups at local preschools where participating children watch or interact with Sesame content. They test the children on whether they are engaged with, pay attention to and learn the intended message of the content. If the episode passes the test, then it moves on to the next stage of production.

If children do not learn the intended message, or are not engaged and attentive, then the episode goes back for editing. In some cases, such as a 1992 program designed to teach children about divorce, the entire episode is scrapped. In this case, children misunderstood some key information about divorce. “Sesame Street” did not include divorce in its content until 2012.

Designing children’s media

With help from the pioneering research of “Sesame Street,” along with research from other children’s television shows both in the industry and in academia, the past few decades have seen many new insights on how best to design media to promote children’s learning. These strategies are still shaping children’s shows today.

For example, you may have noticed that some children’s television characters speak directly to the camera and pause for the child viewer at home to yell out an answer to their question. This design strategy, known as participatory cues, is famously used by the shows “Blue’s Clues” and “Dora the Explorer.” Researchers found that participatory cues in TV are linked to increased vocabulary learning and content comprehension among young children. They also increase children’s engagement with the educational content of the show over time, particularly as they learn the intended lesson and can give the character the correct answer.

You may have also noticed that children’s media often features jokes that seem to be aimed more at adults. These are often commentary about popular culture that require context children might not be aware of or involve more complex language that children might not understand. This is because children are more likely to learn when a supportive adult or older sibling is watching the show alongside them and helping explain or connect it to the child’s life. Known as active mediation, research has shown that talking about the goals, emotions and behaviors of media characters can help children learn from them and even improve aspects of their own emotional and social development.

Programs have also incorporated concrete examples of desired behaviors, such as treating a neurodiverse character fairly, rather than discussing the behaviors more abstractly. This is because children younger than about age 7 struggle with abstract thinking and may have difficulty generalizing content they learned from media and applying it to their own lives.

Research on an episode of “Arthur” found that a concrete example of a main character experiencing life through the eyes of another character with Asperger’s syndrome improved the ability of child viewers to take another person’s perspective. It also increased the nuance of their moral judgments and moral reasoning. Just a single viewing of that one episode can positively influence several aspects of a child’s cognitive and moral development.

Teaching inclusion through media

One skill that has proven difficult to teach children through media is inclusivity. Multiple studies have shown that children are more likely to exclude others from their social group after viewing an episode explicitly designed to promote inclusion.

For example, an episode of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” involved Clifford and his family moving to a new town. The townspeople initially did not want to include Clifford because he was too big, but they eventually learned the importance of getting to know others before making judgments about them. However, watching this episode did not make children more likely to play with or view disabled or overweight children favorably.

Based on my own work, I argue that one reason inclusivity can be difficult to teach in children’s TV may be due to how narratives are structured. For example, many shows actually model antisocial behaviors during the first three-quarters of the episode before finally modeling prosocial behaviors at the end. This may inadvertently teach the wrong message, because children tend to focus on the behaviors modeled for the majority of the program.

My team and I conducted a recent study showing that including a 30-second clip prior to the episode that explains the inclusive message to children before they view the content can help increase prosocial behaviors and decrease stigmatization. Although this practice might not be common in children’s TV at the moment, adult viewers can also fill this role by explaining the intended message of inclusivity to children before watching the episode.

Parenting with media

Children’s media is more complex than many people think. Although there is certainly a lot of media out there that may not use study-informed design practices, many shows do use research to ensure children have the best chance to learn from what they watch.

It can be difficult to be a parent or a child in a media-saturated world, particularly in deciding when children should begin to watch media and which media they should watch. But there are relatively simple strategies parents and supportive adults can use to leverage media to support their child’s healthy development and future.

Parents and other adults can help children learn from media by watching alongside them and answering their questions. They can also read reviews of media to determine its quality and age appropriateness. Doing so can help children consume media in a healthy way.

We live in a media-saturated world, and restricting young children’s media use is difficult for most families. With just a little effort, parents can model healthy ways to use media for their children and select research-informed media that promotes healthy development and well-being among the next generation.

Drew Cingel

Associate Professor of Communication, University of California, Davis

Allyson Snyder

Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of California, Davis

Jane Shawcroft

Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of California, Davis

Samantha Vigil

Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, University of California, Davis

This article originally appearded on The Conversation on February 23, 2024.

How Narratives in Video Games Affect Children and Adolescents

As the video game industry grows, so does the need to understand its consumers and investigate its content on those consumers. Research suggests that over 90% of children and adolescents in America play video games and that the frequency of video gaming increases around age 18, peaking in an individual’s twenties. 

Video games offer insight into individual characteristics and judgment alongside offering advantages in learning environments and social education as they expose players to modeling techniques through rehearsal and reinforcement of social behaviors found through the games’ narratives. These themes can vary greatly from game to game and their content has been shown to impact our cognition and behavior. 

Adventuring has a powerful effect on individuals’ perspectives and psyche. Games teach us morals and allow us to explore aspects of ourselves that would otherwise be unexplored.

“A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage.”

— Hero’s Shade, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess (2006)

Allowing players the ability to project certain aspects of their psychological attributes to their avatars allows them to become the hero and experience themselves in a world where they can achieve feats beyond what is possible in their real lives. This allows a sort of power of resilience within a player without them being aware of the positive cognitive effects that are occurring as they triumph through lands and save the world from utter disaster.

Many video games are essentially moving narratives where the player gets to make decisions about what a character does next in the game. This essentially creates a virtual reality where players can learn from mistakes made in the game or learn more about themselves through the character they bring to life. Some games have fixed narratives, but increasingly, games are allowing for a more autonomous and whole version of the characters in their games. Games like “Skyrim” and “World of Warcraft” allow players to decide throughout the game whether to take a virtuous path of heroism, or a darker path of thievery, or assassination, along with other characteristics. 

Basically, these games allow you to play someone you never could be in real life and this element of choice is what makes video games such an intriguing form of media. I believe Grizzard et al. 2014 said it best: “In narrative media, viewers simply watch moral decisions being made by others, but in video games, players often make the decision to be moral (or immoral).” It is also what makes researching them so complicated and intertwined. Researchers have found that individuals who engage in prosocial gameplay tend to have more prosocial thoughts and behaviors and that individuals who play more violent narratives tend to have an increase of aggressive and hostile behavior and thoughts. Ambiguous games present a unique problem and discussion for researchers.

Morality and Character Content

Narrative content is important to gameplay and to the outside implications of thoughts and actions caused by video games. Not all games are complicated narratives per se and in researching the direct effects of video games on individuals it is hard to have them play a game with a fully immersive and detailed world. So, equally important to narrative content is the character being played in the game. Research has found that the context in which you play a specific character can have direct effects on empathy and general affect.

Morality presents a different viewpoint on aggression and violence within video games. Questions of morality can be intense, and our actions can divide us. Morality asks us if it is okay to kill one to save the many. It asks if violence is acceptable to save an innocent. It also makes video games with protagonists that engage in aggressive behaviors to save the world a question of morality that we should allow individuals to consume. Could it be that a moral high ground and virtuous narrative could mitigate the effects of hostile and antisocial intent?

In fact, research has shown that prosocial concepts can mitigate the effects of violence in video games. Studies have shown that video games could be an important outlet for reflection based upon moral decisions rehearsed in the game and that oftentimes the feeling of guilt can mediate between violent video gameplay and the overall salience of a player. 

Essentially, this means that while moral violations occurred through violence, there was no increase in hostile behavior or aggressive thinking shown after the violent video game was played. This could be due to the idea that we justify the violence in the name of moral high ground or simply that the context provided more access to prosocial thought (saving the world) and thus negated access to antisocial and aggressive thoughts. 

All of this information can be used by both parents and content creators alike to make smart choices for their kids and reflect on the games we all love and play.

Actionable Insights

Here are Actionable Insights for Parents and Video Game Narratives:

• Read the synopsis of a game before gifting a game to a child/teen (check the ratings as well).

• Have discussions with your child about the actions their characters take in each game and investigate the moral dilemmas that might appear. Question the motives of each character including NPCs.

• Encourage playing games with diverse characters and prosocial narratives. 

Here are Actionable Insights for Content Creators of Video Games:

• Develop a variety of characters with diverse positions within games and question the motives of each of your characters. 

• Develop stories with narratives that help users question the world.

• Ask yourself: 

  • What is the purpose of this character?

  •  What is my audience/age range for this character? 

  • Do my characters represent the diverse population of my audience?

Michelle Leccese, MA Psychology

What’s in a Story? How Sociomoral Narratives Can Inform Our Approach to Superhero Media

As someone who has been fascinated with superheroes since elementary school, I am amazed at the explosion of superhero media (cartoons, live-action shows, and films) since the mid-90s. As a scholar, I find myself considering how this boom may be partially related to the core features of superhero narratives—features that have little or nothing to do with superpowers and larger-than-life missions. In particular, I am intrigued by the intersection of children’s development of sociomoral concepts (how youth understand actions that have moral consequences) and the superhero content they consume. Can these stories influence how children develop their sense of morality, particularly when co-viewing sparks family discussions? I will dig deeper into this question. But first, I want to begin with some research into how children process sociomoral concepts through the stories they tell. 

Note: Although my scholarly interests lie in superhero narratives, these features are often present in other forms of children’s media. I am also aware that for various reasons, parents and guardians may have different views on the appropriateness of superhero media given the amount of violence.

What are some core features of narratives?

Since 2000, scholars investigating sociomoral development in children and adolescents have turned to narratives – asking children to recall or discuss morally consequential social interactions – to better understand how youth make sense of these experiences. Their findings can be broken down into three key features. These are youth’s ability to use storytelling to: (1) distinguish between different interpersonal acts, (2) attend to varied perspectives, and (3) appreciate the complex nature of certain moral acts.

1. Comparison of different interpersonal acts. In a study examining children’s stories about times where they have harmed a friend and have helped a friend, researchers found that the participants tended to reference emotions when they had done harm more often than when they had been helpful. In an earlier study involving mother and child relationships, emotional consequences tended to be applied differently. In these instances, the child’s feelings, such as pride, were considered more frequently in the help narratives. In the harm narratives, the discussion focused more on how the others involved might have felt, such as sadness. 

2. Comparison of perspectives within interpersonal acts. In addition to distinguishing between harm and help narratives, research in this area has also compared viewpoints in narratives where someone was harmed or treated unfairly. In these cases, children described situations where they harmed someone (perpetrator) and situations where they were harmed (victim). Researchers found that in stories where the child was the perpetrator, they were more likely to: (1) consider both their own perspective and that of the other person and (2) justify the harm by arguing it was necessary. When narrating experiences related to social exclusion, youth referenced a victim’s hurt feelings and anger when they were the victim more often than when they were the perpetrator. 

3. Comparison of age differences. Although important, evidence pointing to the roles of the nature of the act (harm vs. help) and the person’s vantage point within the situation (perpetrator vs. victim) make up only part of the story. Indeed, evidence suggests that in many ways age also matters. With respect to harm narratives, trust violation as a feature of the social experiences was more common in the narratives of adolescents than those of children. Moreover, in the same study it was found that compared to preschoolers, older children and adolescents were more likely to reference their own attempts to make sense of or construe the harm incidents. In the social exclusion study, older children and adolescents tended to describe themselves as active perpetrators as opposed to passive perpetrators. In both of these studies, older participants more often provided mixed evaluations of the harmful/exclusionary acts (e.g., thinking it was wrong in some ways but not others).

In essence, these studies show that youth can understand and articulate their experiences as perpetrator and victim, and as those who help and those who harm; especially as they get older. However, they sometimes have difficulty considering: (1) emotions associated with and (2) multiple perspectives within those experiences. Such findings present an opportunity for superhero content creators to rethink how they use characterizations and plot points to broach moral concepts for their audience, particularly children and adolescents. Parents may also use these superhero narratives as a potential aid with their youth’s development of these sociomoral concepts. 

How might these findings inform content creation and co-viewing?

Given that: (1) social life inevitably includes instances of harming and being harmed by others and (2) superhero media prevalently features harm-related (i.e., violent) events, below are three practical suggestions related to family viewing of superhero media based on the above findings (concerns with the violent content of superhero media notwithstanding). These recommendations apply to both content creators and parents/guardians. 

Actionable Insights

1. Differing motivations of superheroes and supervillains. Since superhero narratives contain conflicts between superheroes and supervillains, one recommendation for content creators is to make the motivations behind characters’ actions salient (e.g., through flashback episodes and origin stories). This would allow parents/guardians to discuss the characters’ differing motivations with their youth, focusing on the potential link between characters’ emotional experiences and their subsequent decisions to harm and/or help others. 

2. Shifts in perspective to explore diverse consequences of harmful actions. Another recommendation for creators is to explore parallel worlds, or the idea that in a different world, the same character lived a very different life. These kinds of events can provide opportunities to engage youth in “what if” discussions focused on the potential relationship between a person’s vantage point or perspective within an event involving harm, and their understanding of that event.

3. Morally complex or morally gray characters and actions. Lastly, through the use of narratives that include morally complex acts or characters, content creators can provide opportunities for families to consider issues or events that contain both moral (e.g., harm and fairness) and nonmoral (e.g., psychological) elements. How youth attempt to make sense of these events may offer some insight into the extent to which they believe certain social experiences were morally complex, and thus not as “black and white” as the parent/guardian may have initially assumed.

Justin Martin, Ph.D.

Professor at Whitworth University

Mining 21st-Century Skills at Home with Technology

This article is part of our #LearningAtHome2020 series with the Child & Family Blog and BOLD  

Just one year ago, the phrase “learning at home” may have conjured different images for parents and educators, unless home-schooling was already the norm. Families the world over have experienced disruptions to daily life and the challenges of distance learning brought on by the pandemic. Teachers with a reluctance for technology in the classroom have had to make an abrupt shift to reach their students. Parents who have chosen to limit their children’s time with digital devices have been challenged by the inevitable increase in screen time as education went virtual. The line between work and home life has blurred, just as the line between screen time and simply, time, is ever-blurring.  

I’m sure your family could use a break from the math or literacy talk, so I’m going to give you some ideas on how you can encourage your children’s development of 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, communication, and creativity through digital play. This is not nearly as daunting a task as it seems. After all, parents and caregivers are children’s first educators and the home environment is their first classroom. Children learn, develop, and make sense of their world through play. But just as screen time and “time” are increasingly intertwined, our use of digital media as tools for learning needs to evolve. We need to literally think outside the TV or touchscreen box and not be constrained by it.

An example of a playful, open-ended digital world is the video game, Minecraft. In Minecraft, the sky is the limit--within this world, players are bound by their own imaginations. For this reason, Minecraft presents many opportunities to foster a number of 21st-century skills.

The 4 Cs: Communication, Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking

Video games abound with opportunities for social connection and collaboration. Collaboration involves two or more people in a shared effort to learn or solve a problem together. Susan Danby and colleagues provided detailed accounts of children helping each other succeed in various digital environments, and in various regions of the world (Norway, Sweden, and Australia). They provided an example of Australian siblings, ages 4 and 7 years old, traversing a shared digital world (Minecraft) as they acquired resources and combatted zombies. Even though the two children were on their own devices, they engaged in play that demonstrated communication patterns indicative of collaboration and instruction. Children who play games together learn perspective-taking and must consider each others’ shared knowledge.

While the potential to learn and develop 21st-century skills in massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) such as Minecraft exists, transferring these skills to the real-world is less straightforward. When I was the lab manager at the Swinburne Babylab in Australia, I remember entertaining a sibling of one of our research participants. I say “entertaining,” but in reality, I provided him with scrap paper and colored pencils and his imagination took care of the rest. I was so impressed as he explained that he was drawing and planning a building that he would later construct in Minecraft. This is just one example of how the digital world and the physical world can connect to encourage the transfer of skills, such as creativity.

In addition to creativity, researchers have also found that playing Minecraft encourages critical thinking and problem-solving; students who used Minecraft to accomplish various tasks commented on how the game-design forced them to think outside the box. This innovative and creative approach to problem-solving was also shown in a group of 13 year-olds who completed an 8-week workshop in which they were asked to create and explain their products in Minecraft. After the workshop, students’ scores on a test of creativity improved, and their teacher also observed improvements in the students’ creativity. Not only does Minecraft enable the user to have creative freedom, but it can also encourage players to seek information from outside resources, such as reading content on forums or watching or creating Youtube tutorials, etc. This multimodal literacy is referred to as metagaming.

Actionable Insights

Content creators can provide learning opportunities for children by:

1. Creating open-ended environments that lack an explicit goal, “freedom of play”

2. Providing opportunities to help characters. Prosocial content promotes prosocial behaviors such as helping and empathy.

3. Having more tools to choose from to encourage greater creativity in problem-solving.

4. Providing opportunities to interact with and explore the environment. 

5. Encouraging replayability by making sure the game experience isn’t linear or the same every time. 

Content creators can help parents create learning opportunities for their children by:

1. Providing a curriculum with suggestions on how to take the digital content to the real world and practice specific skills, depending on the goal.

   • e.g., plan a garden in Minecraft and then plant a real garden  

2. Recognizing that the digital world extends beyond its intended medium, and children can create educational videos for others to improve their gameplay or participate in online forums to share ideas. 

Happy playing!

Brittany Huber, PhD

Collaborator of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers 

Supporting Parents with Children’s Distance Learning

This article is part of our #LearningAtHome2020 series with the Child & Family Blog and BOLD  

If you’re a parent of a school-aged child - or know a parent - you know about the anxieties and challenges around children’s distance-learning. Earlier this year when many states shut down schools for in-person learning, teachers and parents scrambled to support kids in making the quick transition. Parents’ and caregivers’ roles shifted overnight,  requiring them to be co-teachers and co-learners as they tried to support kids with distance learning. And this is just the parents who are able to stay home with kids. Many parents had to go to their job sites and leave their kids to fend for themselves. Months later, it is clear that distance learning is not going away. Many schools will transition back to hybrid learning, which means some will be in-person and some at-home. There have been, and will also likely be, more outbreaks that cause some re-opened schools to shut down again.  

In March, Common Sense Media launched Wide Open School to support parents with distance learning. This new service curates the best-of-the-best free learning activities for kids and resources for families that make at-home learning easier through user-friendly daily schedules,  activities to support children’s social and emotional well-being, digital citizenship, and materials that address learning and thinking differences. 

So based on what parents and children are experiencing right now at this moment in time, what should children’s media creators do to support families? Consider the following tips on supporting parents with their children’s learning. 

Address Character Education 

Character Education and social-emotional learning (SEL) is in great need (and great demand) both by parents and schools. SEL content is some of our top-requested content on Wide Open School. With the combination of the coronavirus pandemic, economic downturn, civil unrest, police violence, and school closures, there are extreme pressures on the mental health of kids and families. Including characters, stories, and learning that develop characteristics for children such as community, perseverance, humility, empathy, and self-control helps build strong, resilient children. See Common Sense Media’s article Building Character Strengths with Quality Media and our report Tweens, Teens, Tech, and Mental Health for support in thinking about these issues. 

Model caregivers and children learning together 

Some parents may have rarely supported their children’s schoolwork. They may lack role models to show them how to be a co-teacher and co-learner with their child, or how to be a collaborator with their child’s teacher. Content producers can illustrate and normalize life-long learning as an ongoing and cross-generational practice, in which caregivers, older siblings, and children are learning together and supporting one another. Whether it’s providing advice or showing a parent sitting with a child engaging in their distance learning, or tips for parents such as the importance of having children follow their distance learning schedule, parents need to see examples of what their role could be. Moreover, parents are searching for high-quality educational content to supplement their child’s at-home learning. Suggesting exceptional, research-based apps, websites, and games for parents to use in conjunction with their child’s school learning will provide much-needed help. 

Encourage media balance 

Screen use has been increasing over the years, even before the pandemic hit. On average, daily screen/device use at home is about three hours for two through eight-year-olds,  5 hours for tweens,  and 7 hours for teens (Common Sense Media, 2017, 2019). These amounts have increased due to the addition of distance learning time. Heavy media use is associated with physical and mental health problems. Though we know that not all screen time is created equal, we need to encourage media balance, which means balancing media use with other meaningful activities in everyday life. For example, in schools, Go Noodle is so popular, especially for 5-13-year-olds, because it gets kids up and out of their chairs and moving their bodies. Getting the body moving and taking tech breaks helps reduce stress and improves focus and mental clarity.  Content creators might want to consider building these kinds of intermissions into their programming. 

Foster digital citizenship 

The importance of digital citizenship - thinking critically and participating responsibly online - has come to the forefront, especially as kids do distance learning. Parents are looking for guidance to help their kids make good choices about protecting their online privacy, being kind and civil communicators, and thinking critically about the things they see online (discerning misinformation). Companies such as Disney have run campaigns to address digital citizenship issues, including cyberbullying. But beyond social awareness campaigns, kids need to see examples of ways they could handle “digital dilemmas” that come up in their lives such as: What do I do if I see someone say something mean or hurtful online? What should I consider before sharing a photo or video? How can I tell if something I see online is true or not? Successful digital learning - both at school and at home - starts with digital citizenship. 

Actionable Insights

Children’s media producers can serve the present needs of caregivers and children by:

1. Creating content that addresses character education and supports social-emotional learning.

2. Providing models for how children and their caregivers can best interact with one another and educators while engaging in at-home learning. 

3. Encouraging children to take breaks from screen time in favor of physical and screen-free activities.

4. Fostering digital citizenship so kids behave safely and participate responsibly online. 

Kelly Mendoza, PhD

Senior Director of Education Programs, Common Sense Education

Collaborator of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers 

How the Pandemic Can Teach Kids About Compassion

What if this crisis became an opportunity for children to deepen their sense of care?

As a homebound parent with a preschooler, I’ve felt an array of emotions over the past few months during the coronavirus pandemic. I’ve felt sadness and worry about how many people are becoming ill, while being confounded by trying to juggle homeschooling and my own work responsibilities.

But I’ve also felt a great deal of gratitude for the kindnesses that have punctuated so many of my days lately, like when a neighbor left herbs from her garden at my gate or when a faraway friend whom I haven’t heard from in years sent text messages of love.

These positive experiences have affirmed to me that when times are difficult, our common human response is not to show reckless disregard of others but to show compassion.

We often assume that emergencies automatically lead to panic, but research consistently shows that people tend to act in solidarity and turn toward each other with a sense of togetherness. They volunteer, donate supplies, and spread goodwill, strengthening social bonds and helping everyone be resilient together.

“Affiliative, supportive, prosocial behaviors are more common, where widespread sickness and debility evoke acts of mutual aid among members of a community in crisis,” explains Steven Taylor, professor and clinical psychologist at the University of British Columbia, in his book The Psychology of Pandemics.

Compassion—noticing others suffering and being motivated to provide relief to them—grows early on in life. Five-month-old babies prefer helpers over hinderers. When babies between eight and 10 months old see people bump their knees or hurt their fingers, they already show the seeds of empathy with facial expressions, vocalizations, and gestures that reflect concern and a desire to understand others’ distress. By 14 months old, toddlers help others by handing them objects out of reach.

How can parents help their children realize their instinctual capacity for compassion during the coronavirus pandemic? Scientists have suggested three ways that children develop compassion that are relevant to these times.

1. Show compassion to kids so they experience receiving it

During the pandemic, many of our children are feeling uncertainty and upheaval, just like us parents. They miss school, their friends, and playing sports like they did before. For young children who don’t have the breadth of words to express their worries and fears, or older children who don’t have the emotional agility to get through tough moments, it can be overwhelming.

As a result, our kids may be irritable or have more meltdowns and tantrums than usual. But rather than seeing children as uncooperative, parents can consider whether their behavior is simply an indication that they might be suffering, too.

If we offer children warmth and tenderness when their routines are turned upside down, we can soothe them in their own time of need. Parents can extend compassion by making space to help their children become better aware of and process their feelings. Acknowledging and being sensitive to our children’s emotions can act as a salve and help them to see that this moment of hardship will eventually pass.

Parents can also frequently talk to their children about all the members of their extended family and broader community who have cared for them both recently and in the past. For example, parents can tell and retell their children stories of neighbors who brought gift baskets after their pet died or dropped off dinners when a grandparent was in the hospital. These conversations serve to remind children that they are connected to a network of people who are a generous source of compassion from which they can draw strength during times of suffering.

Receiving compassion offers kids a firsthand experience of what it feels like. 

2. Teach kids to practice self-compassion

In turn, just as children receive compassion from parents, they can also learn to offer it to themselves.

When children are having a hard time during the pandemic, parents can encourage them to listen and respond to their bodies and minds with greater awareness, acceptance, and kindness. For example, parents of older children can teach them to take self-compassion breaks to handle stressful moments.

For younger children, this might mean guiding them to first pause and notice their tense muscles, rapid heartbeats, and racing thoughts. Ask them to recognize that they’re having a moment of hardship and children all over the world are having these kinds of moments, too. Teach them to breathe deeply from their bellies and offer themselves words of tenderness like “May I feel calm.”

Parents can also encourage their younger children to cultivate self-compassion by planning enjoyable activities to look forward to after a hard day of homeschooling or after realizing summer vacation plans are cancelled.

Self-compassion allows children to process and cope with difficult emotions. Eventually, it can help them see their common humanity—that everyone suffers sometimes—and know that it’s all right to feel bad.

Tending to their intense emotions helps children be restored and renewed, which in turn prepares them to serve others. Overwhelming personal distress can make children singularly self-focused and less able to attend to others’ suffering. Self-compassion practices can help them be more able to orient toward others and extend compassion to them—which is the last step.

3. Encourage kids to extend compassion to others

During the coronavirus pandemic, even though children are inclined to help, it can be hard for them to know exactly what they can do.

Children can start with small acts of compassion as a family—sending kind thoughts to essential workers, regularly FaceTiming with isolated older or immunocompromised family members, or helping gather canned goods for the local food bank. Parents can also review these other ideas from Youth Service America to help inspire children toward compassionate acts.

Research suggests that small differences in language matter when we’re encouraging our kids to help. Parents can nurture young children’s motivation by inviting them to “be a helper,” which can instill in them a compassionate self-identity. But there’s a catch: When tasks are too difficult and children experience a setback, those who were asked to “be a helper” are less likely to try to help again compared to children who were simply asked “to help.” So, in circumstances when children might not succeed at helping with something, it’s better to just ask them “to help.”

Even young children have undoubtedly picked up on their radar that life right now is quite a bit different than it used to be. What if this pandemic became an opportunity for them to learn that being human during hard times involves transformation and resilience, and that compassion helps us all to thrive?

Maryam Abdullah, Ph.D.

This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

Dreams of a Six Year Old Girl

Have you ever spoken to a six year old girl? Seemingly the epitome of confidence,the world is her oyster, and she believes she can be anything:

• An astronaut;

• A ballet dancer;

• The President;

• All at the SAME TIME.

Moreover, young girls frequently do better than boys in elementary school, where their abilities to sit still and follow rules often makes their teachers give them plenty of gold stars.

The traditional thinking is that young girls’ confidence doesn’t drop until they hit puberty. But something else is happening during the ages of five to seven, as children develop cognitively, becoming aware that others are evaluating their behavior.

As a well designed experiment found, at five years of age, girls say that both genders are smart, but by six years old, they classify boys as belonging to the “really really smart” category at a higher rate. Thus, what children see and hear during this developmental stage shapes thinking in ways that adults may not always see or recognize.

In fact, even at younger ages, children quickly absorb the stereotypes we communicate about activities and skills associated with each gender. Children learn in the context of their social and cultural milieu and the messages they are given (from parents, media, teachers and other socialization agents) promote gender identities, sometimes with stereotypes attached to them.

The good news is that in the US, things may be starting to change.  One study found that when asked to draw a scientist, kids in the United States increasingly draw women. Back in the sixties and seventies, when asked the same question, less than one percent of children drew a female scientist. Today the average is twenty eight percent. But still, as kids get older, they begin to draw more men in this role. At five or six girls draw the same number of men and women, but by seven and eight they begin to draw more men.

So there is still plenty of work to do. Luckily research has helped us become more aware of these biases. Moreover, companies who create media and product for kids are helping change entrenched patterns. Many companies are focusing on creating strong female characters, and their audience is responding – even boys!  

What can you do to help encourage your child to dream big and help your girl recognize that boys and girls are equally “really really smart?  One answer: Play! Play helps girls understand the possibilities because this is when children practice the gendered behaviors they see from role models. And young kids like to play with the objects that will teach them the most.

Here are a few ways caregivers can support their children so they start to internalize gender equality:

1. Choose media that highlight strong female role models.

Why? Because research shows that representation shapes the way we think.

2. Highlight real life female role models, including yourself if you are a woman.

Why? Because connecting to the real world helps make children understand what’s truly possible. And young girls focus on what their female caregiver is doing.

3. Encourage boys to diversify their play patterns. Support their play with dolls, and help them recognize that women are equally brilliant to men.

Why? Because until we recognize that boys can enjoy more “feminine” pursuits, masculine stereotypes of strength and brilliance will persist and undermine progress for women.

Yalda T. Uhls, Ph.D.

Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers

Disclosure: This blog post was written independently and reflects the author’s own views. It was written in support of the Dream Gap project and was paid for by Barbie.

What scared you as a child?

Have you ever been afraid in front of the screen as a child?

We asked this question to 631 university students in eight different countries around the world. We found that universally, the vast majority of them could recall in great detail a childhood experience that scared them so deeply that it was burned in their memory – including the sight, sound, and emotions it aroused. Many of them related stories of how, till today, they will be wary of swimming in the ocean, sleep with a light on, and are petrified of clowns...

• So what is it about TV and films that scare children? In this study we discovered the seven elements of fear: The threatening appearance of a character (remember the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz?)

• A character behaving threateningly (like the profoundly evil character in A Nightmare on Elm Street)

• A character children identify with being under threat and helpless (so many stories of participants recalling being traumatized by poor Bambi alone in the cold, dark forest after his mother was shot by the hunter...)

• Stories that make children aware, for the first time, of threatening scenarios within their experience, or the possibility of these (“who would want to hurt the USA?” thought a shocked child after viewing the 9/11 news coverage) 

• Stories in which safe places are deliberately breached (Chucky the doll cuddled in bed turns to be sadistic) 

• Music and sound that signify danger (remember the dum dum, dum dum dum in Jaws?)

• Scenes depicting injury and homicide (a T.Rex chewing on a bleeding human in Jurassic Park)

About 70% of the programs inducing fear that children were exposed to were not age-appropriate (e.g., thrillers, science fiction, violent action-adventures). But many programs that most parents and professionals would not consider problematic, induce fear reactions as well – from Disney animated movies to even educational programs. For example, little Dumbo’s trunk reaching out to his caged mother was painful to watch for many children. Similarly, scenes from the classic Wizard of Ozthat included the Witch and the monkeys elicited strong fear experiences.

Many of our participants shared impacts of a traumatic experience that haunts them in adulthood as well.  Even as grown-ups, they check under their bed before going to sleep, they struggle emotionally with images of bodily harm that are stuck in their minds, they experience reoccurring nightmares, and they even confessed to discussing these issues currently with their therapist...

How does a child cope with such negative experiences? Just like older viewers, they avoid programs that scare them, they look for support of those around them, and they creatively develop mental strategies such as thinking about something happy before falling asleep.

What, then, should creators of content for children consider in trying to avoid traumatizing children? 

• Avoid severe fear experiences such as inflicting bodily harm or undermining children’s trusts in cuddling toys, and the safety of their home and family – they do not promote a positive relationship with oneself, others, and the environment.  

• Do not avoid dramatic tension altogether – children need to build resilience to threat and anxiety, but at the level that is appropriate for their level of development.

• Encourage a thrill experience, rather than a fear one, an experience where the child feels safe being scared by offering predictable happy endings, employ humor to break the tension, avoid presenting bodily harm. Movies such as Toy Story,The Lion King or Harry Potter could be a thrill experience but just if the child is ready for it – and for most children that is after 7 – 8 years.

Parents, on their part, should –

• Avoid exposing children to age-inappropriate content. They are not ready emotionally to watch thrillers as preschoolers!

• Develop media literacy competencies in children: e.g., explain to them that the hero/ine of the series will be back next episode, that the music is meant to make you feel scared for fun, etc.

• Be there with them when they experience tension and exhibit anxiety – reassure them of your support and protection, explain to them the difference between fantasy and reality, offer a favorite stuffed animal or blanket.

• Stay away from potentially scary content before bedtime.

• Do not leave any lingering fear to settle and become a phobia – help them process it, seek help if needed. 

Want to learn more about…

fear experiences and also learn what 510 children from 5 countries told us about their nightmares from screen - Click here to check our book.

Maya Götz, Ph.D., 

Head of the International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI) and Head of the PRIX JEUNESSE Foundation.

Dafna Lemish, Ph.D., 

Professor and Associate Dean, The School of Communication and Information, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey.

The Power of Forgiveness

Regardless of age, we have all experienced being hurt by our siblings, co-workers, strangers and even our closest friends. When this happens, we often do one of two things – hold a grudge and attempt to get revenge or move on and forgive them, no matter how hard it may be.

Expert Everett Worthington from Virginia Commonwealth University has spent his career studying forgiveness. He explains that this difficult decision requires us to ignore our initial instinct to “get even” and instead try to understand the other person’s reasoning behind their hurtful behavior. Once we make the decision to abandon the negative emotions we feel toward that person and replace them with positive ones, forgiveness will happen over time.

Health Benefits of Forgiveness

Researchers have identified that forgiveness is associated with several benefits including better physical and mental health (e.g., low blood pressure, psychological well-being), reduced anger, and maintenance of close relationships. On the other hand, holding grudges and seeking revenge is associated with several health concerns including depression, anxiety, poor physical health and lower self-esteem.

The benefits of forgiveness have not only been found in adults, but also in children and adolescents as well. The ability to forgive someone is an essential component to maintaining relationships with others and is especially important during development. Peer relationships are crucial for children’s social, emotional, physical and psychological wellbeing –BUT as we all know from experience, relationships are not always easy to manage, especially in the face of conflict.

Teaching this Virtue to Young People

So how can we teach children about the virtue of forgiveness?

One very important way is through parenting. As research has consistently shown, children often imitate their parents’ behaviors, making parents a direct model of behavior for their children. One study in particular demonstrated how parents’ forgiving tendencies were associated with their child’s forgiving tendencies and the results were maintained up to one year later. Outside of modelling forgiving behavior, parents can also explicitly teach their children about forgiveness and how they should respond when faced with conflict or when someone has hurt them.

However, despite parents’ best efforts to instill appropriate values in their children, they are often in competition with the media. In today’s society, media is a very powerful tool that can manipulate the beliefs, norms, perceptions, values and behaviors of the society at large; if something is accepted by the media, it is often accepted by society as well. But if used appropriately, media can be an important educational tool. Therefore, what children see in the media they consume (i.e., YouTube, television, apps) will have an enormous impact on their development, and sometimes even more so than parents!

In this sense, how characters and stories are represented in the media matters, a lot. Often times, representation of characters is talked about in terms of gender or race. However, what we must not forget is that representation can also be about a character’s internal qualities, morals, and beliefs; embodying forgiveness is no exception. Because of the many benefits that accompany the act of forgiving (and being forgiven), it is crucial that we create characters in the media who display the virtue of forgiveness and can therefore teach children and adolescents how to exercise this in their own lives.

How to best show forgiveness through Media:

• Show characters who not only forgive others who hurt them, but also show characters who make mistakes (because they are ‘human’), and take responsibility for their actions, including asking for forgiveness.  

• Portray characters who forgive others (or ask for forgiveness) as brave and courageous because forgiveness is often misconstrued to be a sign of weakness.

• Display characters going through the emotions people experience when they are hurt by a close friend and show how they deal with these emotions.

  • This strategy has been shown to be effective in previous research that found children are capable of learning how to manage their emotions by using an app in which a familiar media character taught children how to recognize and understand emotions (see CSS blog by Eric Rasmussen—a CSS collaborator)

• Portray the importance of friendships and the obstacles that come with them. How are conflicts between friends resolved? What happens if they are not resolved? What happens if they are resolved?

• Demonstrate a character forgiving themselves after they’ve done something to hurt a loved one.

Adrianna Ruggiero is a first-year Ph.D student in the Psychological Science stream at Ryerson University and the Senior Research Coordinator for the Center for Scholars and Storytellers. Her current research mainly focuses on children’s selective social learning and selective trust. She is hoping to expand this area and explore how children learn from technology and media!

Early Childhood Cognition Lab (https://psychlabs.ryerson.ca/ecclab/), Ryerson University

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

Developing Wisdom

You may have heard the old saying, “Wisdom is something that comes with age”, and while there is truth to this, children and adolescents can develop wisdom as well. According to Dr. Thomas Plante,, a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University, wisdom involves the active process of reflection and discernment – two actions that anyone can take. We use reflection when we think about our lives thus far and consider if we are living in accordance with our values, and we use discernment when we make decisions and judgments that guide us towards more meaning and purpose in our lives.

Research shows that our brains are hard-wired to help us acquire wisdom, by ensuring that we learn from our mistakes. In fact, there is a specific region of the brain (anterior cingulate cortex) whose function is to alert us when we have made a mistake or when a mistake is likely to occur. This region also ensures that we pay attention to and learn from our mistakes, so that we are less likely to repeat those mistakes in the future!

Therefore, learning from our mistakes is an important part of our development, especially for children and adolescents. In fact, Dr. Plante believes that children and adolescents are at a critical period in their lives for thoughtful reflection, discernment, and character formation because they are in the constant process of learning. Dr. Mark McMinn, a professor of psychology at George Fox University, agrees, pointing to research that suggests that wisdom increases most between the ages of 13 and 25.

Though it’s unclear why wisdom increases during these specific years, Dr. McMinn suspects that adolescents and young adults may learn wisdom by confronting age-appropriate dilemmas, such as learning from mistakes. Thus, understanding the different ways children learn about behavior is key to understanding how they also develop wisdom.

In addition to learning from their own actions, children and adolescents also look to the outside world to understand norms about how to act and what behavior is appropriate. In one famous psychology study (the Bobo Doll Experiment ), Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura discovered that children were much more likely to behave aggressively towards a large doll if they saw adults hitting and punching the doll first. Bandura’s research suggests that children and adolescents learn by watching those around them, and that children learn from authority figures such as their parents and teachers.

Children also learn from comparing themselves to their friends, a process known as social comparison. In social comparison, people compare themselves to others and try to determine if they are doing better or worse in areas that are important to them, such as performance in school. If children and adolescents see their friends being rewarded or otherwise doing well for making good decisions, this will lead them towards the path of self-improvement and character development as well.

In addition to parents, teachers and friends, Dr. Plante points out that our current culture is also an important source of influence on children and adolescents. Children learn from popular media such as movies and television as well as from social media, apps and games.

Therefore, telling stories that showcase people learning from the consequences of their actions serves as a great example of wisdom development for an audience.

Apps and games which are interactive are also essential for the development of wisdom, because they allow people to receive real-time feedback about their actions and choices. Apps and games that incorporate decision-making can help children and adolescents learn from their mistakes, especially if feedback is provided on how to improve.

This is not to say that an app, in and of itself can lead to wisdom development, but might instead be a useful supplement to aid in the development of wisdom. Dr. McMinn points out that we primarily use our phones to do things quickly, and wisdom is developed slowly, because the learning process is gradual and as we’ve established, wisdom relies heavily on one’s ability to learn.

Dr. McMinn has been most successful in helping others develop wisdom in the context of in-person small groups involving conversation, silence, spiritual components, and practice confronting various dilemmas with the support of “wisdom mentors”.

It’s important to note that Dr. McMinn’s research suggests that children and adolescents would benefit greatly from having mentors that do not rush to provide them with answers in the midst of the dilemmas, but instead take on a supportive role and allow children to arrive at their own solutions. This research suggests that media that helps facilitate in-person conversations may be a way for content developers to assist with wisdom development. The prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for problem solving, develops during adolescence and is not fully formed until the early twenties. Therefore, children and adolescents greatly benefit from adult guidance to support their learning process in developing wisdom.

Finally, wisdom is not just something to be applied towards the self; it can and should also be part of our interactions and relationships with others. When we turn wisdom outwards, it becomes compassion towards others. Compassion is simply having concern for others and expressing care towards them. It can be developed through learning about diversity and the value of people from different backgrounds, as well as from experiencing religious services and serving the community.

While wisdom is certainly something that improves with age, we know that it begins developing long before adulthood. Children and adolescents are full of unsuspecting insight, but targeting specific components of the mechanisms utilized in learning about behavior can help facilitate and support the development of wisdom and compassion.

Actionable Insights:

• Develop media which encourages children and adolescents to practice making choices

• Use media and apps to facilitate small-group, in-person conversations

• Help people reflect on the consequences of their actions

• Check that people are learning from their mistakes

• Provide feedback about how to improve on mistakes

• Use parents, teachers and peers as role models for making good decisions

• Teach children and adolescents to care for others

• Portray cultural diversity in media to facilitate development of compassion

H. Wenwen Ni, PhD Candidate, UCLA

Wenwen Ni is a PhD candidate in Social Psychology at UCLA. She is passionate about using psychological research to improve well-being.

This blog was originally created to support Baylor University in hosting its Technology Innovation Request for Proposal: Improving Character Strengths of Adolescents through Technology Innovation.

What Teens Really Think About Their Social Media Lives: Tips for Storytellers

Social Media and Teens

© Photo by Jen Siska

In Common Sense Media’s latest research, teens share their experiences on everything from digital distraction to how social media makes them feel.

What teenagers look like they’re doing and what they’re actually doing can be two totally different things — especially when it comes to social media. A bored-looking ninth-grader could be majorly bonding with her new BFF on Snapchat. A 10th-grade gamer may complain loudly when you cut off his internet but be secretly relieved. An awkward eighth-grader may be YouTube’s hottest star. To find out what’s really going on in teens’ social media lives, Common Sense Media polled more than 1,100 13- to 17-year-olds in its latest nationally-representative research, Social Media, Social Life: Teens Reveal Their Experiences. The new study updates our 2012 study on teens and social media with surprising new findings that address many of parents’ most pressing concerns about issues such as cyberbullying, depression, and even the popularity of Facebook (spoiler alert: It’s not).

Why now? Today, 89 percent of teens have their own smartphones (compared with 41 percent in 2012). They grew up right alongside Instagram and Snapchat. They do research papers on Google Classroom, find emotional support on teen forums, share poetry on Tumblr, and may text “I love you” before they’d ever say it to your face. But concerns over the negative consequences of social media have grown in tandem with its popularity among teens. Grim reports on teen suicide, addiction, cyberbullying, and eroding social skills have caused many people, from parents to teachers to the tech industry itself, to look at social media as a potential contributor — if not the cause — of these issues. This survey clarifies some of those concerns and draws attention to the reasons some kids are deeply affected by — and connected to — their digital worlds.

Key Findings of Social Media Report & Actionable Insights:

• Thumbs mostly up. Only a very few teens say that using social media has a negative effect on how they feel about themselves; many more say it has a positive effect. Twenty-five percent say social media makes them feel less lonely (compared to 3 percent who say more); eighteen percent say it makes them feel better about themselves (compared to 4 percent who say worse); and 16 percent say it makes them feel less depressed (compared to 3 percent who say more).

• Managing devices is hit or miss. Many turn off, silence, or put away their phones at key times such as when going to sleep, having meals with people, visiting family, or doing homework. But many others do not: A significant number of teens say they “hardly ever” or “never” silence or put away their devices.

• Less talking, more texting. In 2012, about half of all teens still said their favorite way to communicate with friends was in person; today less than a third say so. But more than half of all teens say that social media takes them away from personal relationships and distracts them from paying attention to the people they’re with.  

• Vulnerable teens need extra support. Social media is significantly more important in the lives of vulnerable teens (those who rate themselves low on a social-emotional well-being scale). This group is more likely to say they’ve had a variety of negative responses to social media (such as feeling bad about themselves when nobody comments on or likes their posts). But they’re also more likely to say that social media has a positive rather than a negative effect on them.

Tips for Storytellers:

• Show kids (and their parents) putting phones away or on “do not disturb” at key times, such as mealtimes or bedtime. Kids know social media can get in the way of important things, but they have a hard time regulating their own use. Modeling mindful and intentional use can help to normalize behaviors. It’s also worthwhile to depict kids who take phone breaks for a day or more to feel less distracted, or to avoid digital drama.

• Highlight the teens who need the most help. An honest depiction of teen social media use for a depressed teen might include a teen feeling unusually happy after receiving online validation (through likes or replies), but also deeply affected by comparing themselves negatively to others online (like on Instagram), or not getting likes or feedback after posting something.

• Show the creative side of media to inspire teens to use media to learn and grow. Teens express themselves in a variety of ways on social media: creating and sharing art, photography, poetry and other writing, and music. Take care to show kids creating with their mobile devices, and not just consuming or mindlessly scrolling.

To find out the latest on what teens are doing on social media, check out Common Sense Media.

Michael Robb, Ph.D.

Senior Director of Research, Common Sense

Collaborator of The Center for Scholars & Storytellers

Caroline Knorr

Senior Parenting Editor, Common Sense

“It Depends”

“It Depends” – The Most Annoying and Honest Response that I Give

“Does media violence harm young people?”

It depends.

“Do apps that are labelled educational actually help children learn better?”

It depends.

“Is multitasking problematic for teens?”

It depends.

“Can social media, like Facebook, really support social wellbeing?”

It depends.

As the director of one of the world’s largest centres for the study of young people and the media, and as the chair of the Children, Adolescents, and Media division of the International Communication Association, I get asked to talk about this field – A LOT.  Phone calls from journalists are the norm. Invitations to speak globally flood my inbox. Parents and caregivers send messages. Creators send me pitches. Even family parties are flooded with questions.  The topic of children and media is a topic that quickly sends everyone on high alert. Everyone has a perspective – and one they are ready to defend.

Some argue passionately that media has robust and meaningful effects that must be understood and capitalized upon. Others argue just as passionately that media has little effects in the grand scheme of things, and that media panics of our day are ‘much ado about nothing’. Some are convinced that today’s smartphone generation is dumbing itself down, others are convinced that the same generation will be far more equipped for the years to come thanks to their digital literacy and flexible thinking.

Everyone has a perspective.

So do I.

Except my perspective is not the popular one. My perspective often elicits a few eye rolls followed by the push to ‘pick a team’. (PS: I have picked a team … it’s the Philadelphia Eagles!)

Just as others passionately argue for their perspective, I passionately argue for mine – which is ‘It Depends’.  You see, after more than a decade in this field, and after having a bird’s eye perspective of the field and its (enormous) growth for some time now – I know one thing for sure: Effects are not that simple.

Time and time again, we see that WHO a young person is dramatically influences the extent to which they select, experience, and are affected by media content. Age matters – this we know. But so too does a host of personality traits and range of background variables. Some children love sensation and they seek out fast-paced content, experience deep physiological reactions to it, and then experience intense effects. Other children with comparably lower need for sensation are uninterested or relatively unaffected by the content altogether. Same thing goes for differences in intelligence, or personality traits like degree of extroversion, trait empathy, curiosity, and more.  And let’s not forget the larger context with which the child is growing up. My own research with colleagues at CcaM has shown remarkable differences in the extent to which media has any effects based on how parents mediate the home media environment, as well as based on the peer environment that surrounds young people.

Naysayers of media effects tend to suggest that the statistical media effects found in research studies are quite small, and as a result, are relatively meaningless. Proponents of media effects like to hold up these effects and highlight how many effects are similar in strength to those found in investigations on the relationship between smoking and lung cancer.

But I am not taking a side on this.

I don’t see these effect sizes as anything else than what they are – an aggregate of the relationship between media exposure and media effects. And while statistical effect sizes help us understand what is going on for most people, they can easily mask the messier truth: specifically, that a minority of children may be particularly influenced by (certain kinds) of media, while others may be less or unaffected altogether.

This perspective doesn’t make me popular. My response doesn’t lend itself to soundbites or so-called “chocolate headlines”. It frustrates people. How can we, after so many years of research, still say “it depends”?  Well, think about it. The media space is changing fast and furiously. So fast that I find myself texting my godson to tell me about the newest social media space I should know, and have him help me decipher what teens mean when they write #OOTD (… in case you were wondering, it’s Outfit Of the Day…). We are barely keeping pace with a media space that is increasingly on-demand, increasingly portable, and increasingly personalized. At the same time, our context of use is ever more complicated … the so-called ‘family hearth’ is a thing of the past. And, our ability to understand and study what young people bring to the media experience is more advanced than ever before. If you had told me 15 years ago that I could look at patterns of brain activity with fMRI to understand how Instagram use impacts teens’ neural processing, I would have looked at you with a blank stare. I am not saying our lessons of old aren’t valuable – they are, immensely so. But … we are in a new space that is increasingly complicated and I believe we do a disservice to our community if we make bold un-nuanced claims to effects.

Life is messy. It’s not that surprising that our research findings are messy as well. Rather than fight the mess, I am trying to embrace it. Sure, some days it makes me want to pull my hair out as I battle another manuscript or try to find a clear answer for a journalist.  Some days I find it frustrating that I cannot put everything into a neat and organized list for parents as they ask for tips about how to best manage their home media environment. Sometimes I wish I had a chocolate headline to share. It would be easier, that’s for sure.

But easy is overrated, right?

It depends.

Jessica Taylor Piotrowski, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam

Director, Centre for Research on Children, Adolescents, and the Media (CcaM)

Collaborator of The Center for Scholars and Storytellers

Dr. Jessica Taylor Piotrowski is the Director of the Centre for research on Children, Adolescents, and the Media at the University of Amsterdam. She is the co-author of the book “Plugged In: How Media Attract and Affect Youth”. You can download an open-access copy of the book from the publisher’s website (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300218879/plugged). A Philadelphia native, Jessica traded cheesesteaks, cars, and the Liberty Bell for stroopwafel, running routes, and windmills in 2012 – and hasn’t looked back since. You can find her on the web at www.jessicataylorpiotrowski.com… or running her next marathon somewhere in Europe.

Creating an App that is both entertaining and educational!

Young Children Can Learn Social-Emotional Skills from an App!

I consider myself a pretty good parent. I don’t let my kids eat dirt. They know how to call 911. And due to the nature of my job as a media researcher, I think I’m pretty well-attuned to what my kids should and shouldn’t do with media. But that doesn’t seem to keep my kids from finding and playing with app games that I’ve never heard of.

In discussions with researchers around the country and with those here at Texas Tech University, it became apparent that far too little research looks at the value of “educational” apps that our kids sometimes get their hands on. If we, as media researchers, can’t identify a worthwhile app for our kids, how are parents supposed to do so? So, we did what researchers do—we designed a study to test the educational value of a popular children’s app.

Together with researchers at Texas Tech University, University of South Dakota, and Vanderbilt University, and in cooperation with Fred Rogers Productions, we invited 121 children ages 3-6 to play with the “Daniel Tiger’s Grr-ific Feelings” app (or with a ‘control’ app) for about two weeks.

In the study, published in the Journal of Media Psychology, we found that children who played with the “Daniel Tiger’s Grr-ific Feelings” app were significantly better at managing negative emotions, such as feeling mad, sad, and disappointed (a skill that scholars call “emotion regulation”) than those who didn’t play with the app. For example, kids who played with the Daniel Tiger app were more likely to take a deep breath and count to four when they felt mad, just as Daniel Tiger instructs. This was also true for kids who played with the app and watched episodes of “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.”

Alone, these results are pretty astounding—kids can learn to manage their emotions by playing with an app! But our research team was even more amazed by what we found next. We met with families about a month after the conclusion of the study and found that the skills kids had learned had persisted. Finding short-term effects of media use is pretty common in media research, but such long-term effects are much more rare. In other words, there is something about playing with the Daniel Tiger app that teaches emotional skills to children that sticks with them long-term.

As a parent myself, the implications for this study are clear—it’s okay to let my kids play with the “Daniel Tiger’s Grr-ific Feelings” app. Among the thousands of apps that claim to be “educational,” we now have an option that research shows is truly educational.

I encourage content creators to take a close look at the ways in which the intended lesson was incorporated into the app and its features. While this study did not look at specific components of the app or its content, we know from past research that educational content for kids tends to have better results when it includes features such as:

• The inclusion of relatable (and known) characters: Daniel Tiger is the age of the kids for whom the app is intended.

• Memorable songs: Once you hear Daniel Tiger jingles, they’re hard to get out of your head—just ask any parent of a child who spends time with Daniel Tiger content.

• Simple & repetitive: Kids both crave and learn well from repetition!

• Tightly-designed games: Kids learn better when the task or plot is highly intertwined with the lesson being taught.

I work hard at being a good researcher. I work even harder at being a good parent. Being a parent is tough, and in today’s world, I’ll use anything that helps me teach my kids the skills they’ll need as they grow up. And if an app my kids want to play with will do just that, I’ll take it.

Eric Rasmussen, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University

Collaborator of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers

Citation: Rasmussen, E. E., Strouse, G. A., Colwell, M. J., Russo Johnson, C., Holiday, S., Brady, K., … & Norman, M. S. (2018). Promoting preschoolers’ emotional competence through prosocial TV and mobile app use. Media Psychology, 1-22.

Led by Dr. Eric Rasmussen, this research, was conducted at Texas Tech University, Vanderbilt University, and University of South Dakota, and the research team included CCS’ co-director Dr. Colleen Russo Johnson as well as CSS collaborators Dr. Gabrielle Strouse and Dr. Georgene Troseth.

(Photo courtesy of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood ©2012, The Fred Rogers Company)

From Beer to Big Bird to Blue’s Clues: Research has Impact

What do selling beer and selling the alphabet have in common? They are forever tied together by the simple genius of Joan Ganz Cooney. Given the challenge to try to make something good out of television that could positively impact young lives, she first made one clear insight- kids loved to watch commercials. “Children all over the country were learning beer commercials so they were learning something, but could it teach something of potential use to children?” asked Cooney. Clearly, the songs, jingles, and production of the commercials kids were seeing were attracting a young audience, but Cooney didn’t stop there. She did what would lay the foundation for perhaps the most important kids show of all time. She did research.

In the summer of 1967 Cooney took a leave of absence from her job at WNDT and, funded by Carnegie Corporation, traveled the U.S. and Canada interviewing experts in child development, education, and television. At the end she had a document to work from:  “The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education” and from that sprouted not only the show, “Sesame Street” but also the Children’s Television Workshop, a model for working and creating.

Research had impact.

Her research and work continues to impact children not only in America but worldwide. Doing research and really understanding her audience and their needs also ended up being great for business because the show really worked for kids. They were selling the alphabet and kids were buying in.

Fast forward a few decades to “Blue’s Clues,” another show that revolutionized television for kids. And like Sesame Street, the creators of Blue Clues also spent time before the creation of the show thinking about child development and how it plays into making content for kids. They did research.

Todd Kessler, Angela Santomero, and Traci Paige Johnson—the trio that developed Blue’s Clues—wanted the show to be entertaining as well as educational. Santomero held a master’s degree in child developmental psychology from Columbia University but the novice team also enlisted the help of educators and consultants to craft a format that reflected the latest research in early childhood development.

Integrating this research into every episode, the show emphasized problem solving skills and audience participation in a way no other children’s program has before. While “Sesame Street” used bite sized content to connect with the audience, “Blues’s Clues” used a narrative, and empowered preschoolers to help the host, Steve, figure out clues. Not surprising, Blues Clues was also a runaway success, both with kids and from a business view. .

So the next time you watch one of those catchy beer jingles online or on TV, we hope you think of Joan Ganz Cooney and her desire to “sell the alphabet to preschoolers” or think of the amazing creators of Blues Clues who changed the model for getting preschoolers to interact with the screen. Because for both, research had impact.

Kim Wilson

Media Advisor & Consultant of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers

What’s the Best Way to Tell a Story that Teaches Kids to Tell the Truth?

‘It wasn’t about politics. It was the underlying values’

Joe Biden about John McCain

In 2018, it feels like the values of integrity and honesty are further away from our national character than ever before.  We try to teach our children to be honest, but it’s challenging when they see grown-ups lying everyday.

The good news is stories can help inspire honest upstanding behavior. But do the stories we tell our kids to teach them not to lie work? Surprisingly counter-intuitive research demonstrates that for young kids, we may not be getting across the right message.

Researchers from the University of Toronto read children, ages 3 to 7, three stories: George Washington and the Cherry Tree, Pinocchio or The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Only one of these stopped kids from telling a lie.

The story about George Washington telling the truth to his father about chopping down the tree, and the pride he felt that when his father praised his honesty, was the only effective story. Why did the researchers believe this worked? Because this story, unlike the others which feature high stakes and scary outcomes, featured positive consequences. In other words, instead of being scared, the kids focused on the lesson at hand. Learning not to lie.

And while the researchers didn’t point to realism, decades of research demonstrates that for young kids, realistic, relatable stories are more effective (cough, can you say Mr Rogers Neighborhood?).  So perhaps the fact that nearly any child can relate to wanting their father to be proud of them, rather than an obscure story about a wolf eating them, was a reason they actually got the point of the fable.

How can you make sure younger kids will get the message you intend to get across? See below for some basics.

Yalda T. Uhls, Ph.D. 

Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers