Is Parenting Take the Offensive Against popular Culture?

Parents are far from ideal, but no less than they almost always have the most interest of their kids at heart. Not like the greedy companies who are only interested in earning money of children and really don’t mind how much they harm the mental and physical health of the children they exploit.



Fashionable culture might be the most powerful power in our society now. Whether through the media of television, films, music, the Web, radio, or magazines, fashionable culture is here and there, intense, and inexorable. So who can defend your kids from its Sirens’ call? Although universities, houses of worship, and our regime may help to changing degrees, the onus is on parents. It is, little doubt, a rising battle, but you don’t have the luxurious of sitting back and playing protection against fashionable culture; it will unavoidably overwhelm you and your kids. You have to take the offensive against fashionable culture to guard your kids from its bad messages.



If you look no deeper, you may conclude that those messages are harmless, but then you put your children at risk to the real dangers that lurch below the surface. Popular culture spends billions of dollars each year finding ways to lie, control, and push your children to the "dark side" without you even realizing it. To avoid this "grand seduction," deconstruct fashionable culture by looking beneath the surface of the fun and entertainment and see the real messages it’s communicating to your children.



A great exercise is to watch a television show, play a video game, or listen to music in which your children are involved:



    1, Recognize what attracts your children to it (e.g., television commercials for junk food present attractive and cool children having a great time while eating the advertised product).
    2, Identify how the ad is manipulating your children (e.g., children want to be fashionable and have fun).
    3, Identify the messages that lie below the surface (e.g., junk food is good, being cool is more important than your health).
    4, Compare these messages to those that you want to convey (e.g., are they consistent with or contrary to your messages?
    5, If the messages from popular culture are incompatible with yours, make a deliberate decision to limit your kids’ exposure (e.g., limit the television shows they are allowed to watch).



Be aware that you don’t have to openly endorse fashionable culture’s messages for your children to be influenced by them. When you allow your children to play violent video games, listen to explicit music lyrics, or eat junk food, you are conveying your tacit approval. Because you typically express displeasure with your children when you don’t like something they’re doing, when you don’t express it, they will assume that what they’re doing is okay. The lesson here is that when you ignore something your children are doing, that is as good as encouraging it.



Decide how harmful different aspects of fashionable culture are to your children and realize that, given the power of popular culture, you can not fight and win every battle. So pick your battles carefully. It may be, for example, that you judge movies that have no commercial merchandising tie-ins to be okay for your children, but you don’t permit them to watch any television (because of the seemingly endless stream of commercials) or you limit their video-game play to nonviolent, educational games. You may decide that you can live with sometimes explicit music lyrics, but draw the line at provocative clothing. You might even accept an earring for your son or navel ring for your daughter knowing that children tend to outgrow them at some point.



Whatever you decide, I would encourage you to give your kids some "victories" in these battles. When you allow your kids to win a few small skirmishes, they won’t feel the need to seek out bigger wins that may be more destructive, for example, the use of drugs or alcohol. At the same time, whichever battles you do decide to fight, commit yourself 100 percent, and don’t relent no matter how difficult it gets.



One way to take the offensive is to become your kids’ gatekeeper to popular culture. Do your research and educate yourself about fashionable culture’s role in your kids’ lives. What are they watching, playing, listening to, and surfing? What messages are being communicated? Identify what is unhealthy and what is healthy. The fact is that you can’t prevent your children from using fashionable culture. What you can do is encourage popular culture that is both healthy, for example, educational television shows, video games, and websites, and entertaining-if it’s not engaging, your kids will discard it quickly. You may need to assume some responsibility in which you spend more time actively sharing these healthier forms of fashionable culture to ensure that your kids connect with them. You can also get them away from fashionable culture altogether by having them spend their time reading, exercising, or playing a sport or musical instrument.



As the gatekeeper, establish limits on how much time your children are allowed to spend and what they’re allowed to watch, play, listen to, and surf. For example, you may decide not to allow your kids to watch more than one hour of television each day, play video games during the week, or use the telephone or texting during dinner or homework.



If you introduce limits when there were few limits previously, your children will likely resist your efforts. For example, if your kids are addicted to video games and you limit or remove them, they will be very unhappy. In this situation, you have to be firm and consistent in establishing limits, expectations, and consequences-follow-through is everything!



Actively making a supportive society has important profit for both you and your kids. You’ll feel more supported as you face the behemoth of fashionable culture. Your kids will be surrounded by a society that helps you resist fashionable culture’s messages. When they leave your house, you and your kids will know they are entering a world that is populated by like-minded people who will help them in their daily battles with fashionable culture.



Finally, I think parent’s have every right to do what they think is greatest for their kid. It’s just the motivation behind it that worries me. Two parents can want the same thing, "Don’t eat rubbish food," and have immensely different approaches for getting there. Clearly that is an overstatement but I wish the spirit of what I was attempting to say came across okay.