Family Viewing Guidelines
-Critical Viewing Tips

Daniels Cablevision is pleased to provide the following list of Critical Viewing Tips. The list has been accumulated from a variety of sources. If you have a tip you'd like to include, please contact:

Phil Urbina
Community and Governmental Relations Manager
Daniels Cablevison
5720 El Camino Real
Carlsbad, CA 92008
Phone: 760-438-7741, ext. 241
Fax: 760-431-1306

1. Talk to your children about what they watch and ask them to interpret what they see. Many young children cannot differentiate between what is real and unreal.
2. Be aware that children of different ages interpret what they see differently. What may be exciting and cool to a teenager may be frightening to a preschool child.
   
3. Ask your child how a victim of violence might feel. All too often television programs show the violence but not the consequences to the victims.
   
4. Discuss with your child how conflicts are resolved. Frequently violence or other simple methods are used to meet the time constraints of the TV program.
   
5. Praise good behavior and criticize bad behavior on television. Use television scenes to discuss how it either supports or doesn't support your own family's values.
   
6. Make television a planned activity. When a program is over, turn it off, rather than channel surfing for something else to watch.
   
7. Give older children a budget of TV time. Let them look through the listings and determine which programs to watch. Have them present their list for parental approval.
   
8. As a family, go through the TV listings and plan your television viewing for the week. Discuss the reasons for choosing quality family programming.
   
9. During commercials, ask your children what they think might happen next. This helps them develop verbal skills and creative thinking.
   
10. Establish family TV rules and strive for consistency. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests children watch no more than one to two hours of TV each day.
    
11. Establish family guidelines for selecting programs. Children should know what you value and the reasons for your choices.
    
12. Choose quality television. Make it a part of your family routine to view educational TV programs often.
    
13. Teach your children media literacy skills. Talk about what they watch and point out special effects and how they're created.
    
14. Ask your children questions about what they watch on TV. Their answers will give you an idea how they perceive the information and if you need to intervene.
    
15. Explain to your children the differences between manufactured horror and real-life suffering. Discuss sensational and sensitive portrayals of violence on TV.
    
16. Model good viewing habits. Intentionally decide what you will watch and make it clear to your children that you make decisions about viewing.
    
17. Some of the news today is graphic and inappropriate for toddlers. Place the television where it is not accessible to
18. Play real or make-believe with your children. Ask whether a character is made-up or real-life. Could an object move by itself, or an animal talk?
    
19. Let TV programs lead to other activities. Have your child draw pictures of the whales she saw in a nature documentary or look up whales in the encyclopedia.
    
20. Make a game of having your children spot different categories of what they see. Is TV trying to "sell" them something, "teach" them something, or "entertain" them?
    
21. Use TV to capture your children's curiosity. Encourage them to go to the library to learn more about issues or ideas raised by programs they like.
    
22. Look for connections to books. A TV program may be based on a book. Encourage children to read about it and then compare what they've read to what they've seen.
    
23. Learn geography from TV. Weather and news reports, documentaries and sports take place somewhere. Keep an atlas or globe near the TV and identify the places.
    
24. Discuss points of view. Ask your children how the program might be different if someone else -- a different character or the subject of the news story -- had told it?
    
25. Watch the TV with the sound off. With your child add your own narration or sound effects. Ask what kind of music matches the pictures.
    
26. Tape educational or wholesome TV programs to create a video library, assuring there's always something good to watch.
    
27. Have your children make tickets or tokens for TV time that can be earned or issued as an allowance.
    
28. Talk to your children about who is being stereotyped in a television program.
    
29. Tell pre-school children that TV is pretend, that someone made up the stories for them to watch. Have them make up a story for TV.
    
30. Watch cartoons with your child. Remind them that if a person gets hit on the head with an anvil or falls off a cliff they would be hurt. Ask them why violence is funny.
    
31. After watching a television program, have your child practice memory skills by summarizing the story.
    
32. Encourage your child's own imagination by having them retell the story of a television program with their own ending.
    
33. After viewing a television program with violence, ask your child how the problem could have been solved without using violence.
    
34. When you take your child shopping, have them compare actual products with commercials they have seen. Do the real products look the same?
    
35. Pay attention to what your pre-schooler sees you or other adults watching. Children are often unintentionally exposed to programs with violence or mature subject matter.
    
36. Have elementary age children think about their favorite TV show. What if one or two main characters switched gender? Would it work given the way the show is written? What does the switch say about our images of men and women.?
    
37. Pay attention to the camera angles, music and special effects in a TV show. Count the number of times music changes in a video, or listen for why a laugh track is added to a sitcom. These are revealing ways to take the mystery out of TV. By taking note of these and other production techniques, your child will gain valuable critical viewing skills.
    
38. If you have access to a video camera, encourage children to make their own television shows.
    
39. While watching with your children, talk back to your TV. Question what you see and hear. Challenge or support the ideas. Express opinions about storylines and characters.
    
40. Discuss with your child how conflicts are resolved. Talk about unnecessary violence and point out characters who use positive behavior. Praise them as good examples.
    
41. Ask your children why they think certain commercials are aired during certain programs. For example, ask why toy ads are aired during cartoons.
    
42. Try to predict with your children what kinds of commercials will appear in a selected show. See how program content connects with commercial intentions.
    
43. When your children see their favorite sports hero telling them to try a particular food, shoe or some other product, ask them if they think the star gets paid to say those things. Would the star really eat the food or choose the shoes for himself or herself if he or she weren't being paid?
    
44. Set an example for your children. Make your own TV watching a conscious planned for activity.
    
45. When your children stay at the homes of their friends, make sure you ask them if they watched television and if so, what they watched.
    
46. If you're unsure if a program (even cartoons) is suitable for your children, videotape it. You can then preview it when your children are asleep and decide if it's OK for your children.
    
47. Balance children's lives. Make sure children have a variety of activities throughout childhood.
    
48. Watch or rent "making of" movies to show your children. This will help them understand how movies are made and that special effects are created, not real.
    
49. Regularly talk with other adults about media literacy. When your children see you taking media literacy seriously, they will too.
    
50. Avoid random viewing. Keep the TV off when doing other activities. Make television a planned activity.
    
51. Watch the programs your children watch. It's the best way to monitor their viewing habits.
    
52. Explain to your children the purpose of commercials. Let your children know commercials are created to sell goods and services.
    
53. Encourage your children to observe and appreciate the wide range of cultures, people, ideas and art forms that are featured on television programs.
    
54. Make sure you tell your children's babysitter what types of television programming you allow your children to watch.
    
55. Check the ratings and read descriptions of television programs to help you decide whether a program is appropriate for your children.
    
56. Turn on the closed captioning device so your children will learn by "reading" television. Mute the sound for older children forcing them to read. Leave it on for younger children to assist them with reading.
    
57. To assure consistency, divorced parents should agree on viewing guidelines that are implemented in the homes of both parents.
    
58. Do not watch news within the hearing or viewing range of young children. The images are often violent and produce anxiety in young children.
    
59. Keep a television diary to know just how much and what your children are watching.
    
60. Encourage your children to spend as much time reading as they spend watching television.
    
61. Tap into your child's interests and then provide viewing suggestions to increase their awareness of themselves in the world.
    
62. Use television to discuss controversial issues such as drug use, peer pressure and sex.