The Importance Of Assertive Parenting

By Author: Jertri Hayes
Total Articles: 7
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One of the most difficult aspects of parenting in this age is protecting your kids from the influences of media. This is especially important for girls, since the prevailing influences out there seem determined to kill feminine strength. With a little searching, parents can find acceptable video content and free online girl games, which will provide positive instruction instead of negative role models. But parents have to be assertive.Media has worked its way into every aspect of our lives. Whereas the average person's primary exposure to media 20 years ago came from television and radio, now the conduits to content are everywhere. Our computers, and even our phones, have become saturated with content, much of which is designed to distract us and our kids, and to waste time.In many ways smartphones are wonderful devices, but they're a little like swords: useful in one way and dangerous in another. While they provide all kinds of useful capabilities wherever we go, they also play an insidious role, allowing media to creep into every moment of our lives, replacing the creative act of doodling with the receptive, uncreative ...
... act of phone-fiddling.When a child misbehaves, it is usually because he needs something, is testing boundaries, or is trying to get our attention. Some parents allow themselves to become slaves to their kids' need for attention, and that is destructive. Kids who get too much attention become spoiled by it and go through their lives expecting the rest of the world to be as indulgent as their parents were. Trying to get attention from an inattentive world can lead to dangerous behavior, of which girls are especially at risk.But behind the scenes of a child's misbehavior there is an important developmental process happening. If the child doesn't get what he wants, he is liable to take the misbehavior to an extreme, throwing the kind of fit that every parent is familiar with. As he throws the fit and doesn't get what he wants, he learns that bad behavior isn't beneficial, and eventually he will get over it and find a way to entertain himself. That is a critical skill for any child to develop, and if we distract him from his tantrum with media, we rob him of the ability to develop it.Of course, it's insane to imagine a child growing up in our media-saturated world without some exposure to it, and that's why parents have to be vigilant. Kids' content may have some educational component to it, but producers are far more interested in making it entertaining (so it will engage kids and sell to parents) than in delivering quality information.And when it comes to content aimed specifically at girls, it seems that much of the content contains a twisted worldview that is both coddling of and degrading to women. Instilling that view in young, impressionable girls can be highly destructive.There are numerous sources for quality content on the Internet. There are educational films, opportunities for discovery, and free online girl games, but parents can't just turn the content filters on and let their kids fend for themselves. They need to take an active role in finding content that will benefit their kids.To learn more about free online girl games, click here