NAEYC handout

a. Television exposure correlates with anxiety and sleep disturbances
b. Retrospective reports reveal lingering effects of movies and TV
    (1) sleeping or eating disturbances
    (2) avoidance
    (3) mental preoccupation
    (4) long duration

a. "Preoperational" ~ 2-6 years
b. "Concrete Operational ~ 7-12 years
c. "Formal Operational" ~13 and older

a. Importance of appearance
b. Fantasy ~ Reality
c. Trouble with transformations

a. 2-6 years: grotesque images, whether realistic or not; transformations; natural disasters & accidents; parental death; intense, eerie noises, screams
b. 7-12 years: realistic threats, news, especially child victims or family peril

a. Increases with age
b. Younger respond to natural disasters
c. Older respond to interpersonal violence
d. The case of 9/11: Media exposure related to subsequent problems

a. Increasing anxiety trends over the decades
b. Neurobiological explanations for long-term effects.

    (1) Remove them from the scary situation
    (2) Don't belittle or ignore the fear
    (3) Provide your physical presence, attention, and warmth
    (4) Try a new, fun activity
    (5) Go along with reasonable rituals
    (6) Recognize the limited effectiveness of logical explanations
    (7) "Teddy's TV Troubles" book as modeling example

    (1) For fantasy threats: Stress the impossibility
        (Younger children may benefit from visual demonstrations)
    (2) For realistic threats
        (a) Give the "calm, unequivocal, limited truth"
        (b) Use fears as "teachable moment" for safety
        (c) Talk to them sympathetically and reassuringly

1. Rating systems
    a. Television
    b. Movies
    c. Music
    d. Videogames (2)
    e. The Internet (many)

2. Other information sources
    a. PSVratings.com
    b. Screenit.com
    c. Moviemom.com
    d. Moviereports.com

National Institute on Media and the Family
www.mediaandthefamily.org
information@mediafamily.org,

American Academy of Pediatrics'
Media Matters Campaign
www.aap.org/advocacy/mmcamp.htm
mediamatters@aap.org

Joanne Cantor, "Mommy I'm Scared": How TV and Movies Frighten Children and What We Can Do to Protect Them. San Diego: Harcourt, 1998.

Cantor, J. (2002). The psychological effects of media violence on children and adolescents. http://joannecantor.com/ montrealpap_fin.htm

Cantor, J. (2000). The media and children's fears, anxieties, and perceptions of danger. In D. G. Singer & J. L. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (pp. 207-222). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Cantor, J. (2004). "I'll never have a clown in my house: Why movie horror lives on. Poetics Today: International Journal for Theory and Analysis of Literature and Communication, 25, 283-304.

Cantor, J., & Nathanson, A. (1996). Children's fright reactions to television news. Journal of Communication, 46 (4), 139-152.

Cantor, J., & Sparks, G. G. (1984). Children's fear responses to mass media: Testing some Piagetian predictions. Journal of Communication, 34, (2), 90-103.

Cantor, J., Sparks, G. G., & Hoffner, C. (1988). Calming children's television fears: Mr. Rogers vs. the Incredible Hulk. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 32, 271-188.

Cantor, J., & Wilson, B. J. (1984). Modifying fear responses to mass media in preschool and elementary school children. Journal of Broadcasting, 28, 431-443.

Cantor, J., & Wilson, B. J. (1988). Helping children cope with frightening media presentations. Current Psychology: Research & Reviews, 7, 58-75.

Cantor, J., Wilson, B. J., & Hoffner, C. (1986). Emotional responses to a televised nuclear holocaust film. Communication Research, 13, 257-277.

Harrison, K., & Cantor, J. (1999). Tales from the screen: Enduring fright reactions to scary media. Media Psychology, 1, 97-116.

Hoffner, C., & Cantor, J. (1985). Developmental differences in responses to a television character's appearance and behavior. Developmental Psychology, 21, 1065-1074.

Johnson, J. G., Cohen, P., Kasen, S., First, M. B., & Brook, J. S. (2004). Association between television viewing and sleep problems during adolescence and early adulthood. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 158, 562-568.

LeDoux, J. (1994). The emotional brain. New York: Simon & Schuster.
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/home/ledoux/

Owens, J., et al. (1999). Television-viewing habits and sleep disturbance in school children. Pediatrics, 104 (3), c27. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/104/3/e27.

Schuster, M. A., et al.. (2001). A national survey of stress reactions after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. New England Journal of Medicine, 345, 1507-1512.

Simons, D., & Silveira, W. R. (1994). Post-traumatic stress disorder in children after television programmes. British Medical Journal, 308, 389-390.

Singer, M. I., et al. (1998). Viewing preferences, symptoms of psychological trauma, and violent behaviors among children who watch television. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 37, 1041-1048.

Twenge, J. M. (2000). The age of anxiety? Birth cohort change in anxiety and neuroticism, 1952-1993. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 1007-1021.

Wilson, B. J., Hoffner, C., & Cantor, J. (1987). Children's perceptions of the effectiveness of techniques to reduce fear from mass media. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 8, 39-52.

Joanne Cantor

jrcantor@wisc.edu

www.tvtroubles.com

(608) 221-0593