Preparation

If you have a YouTube account have your login data for this lesson ready.  

Method / Process description

• Input: Introduce why it is important for adults to take care of age-appropriate media for children  (Module 6 > 6.2. Accompanying Children Using Digital Media > Age-Appropriate Media Usage > Age Groups and Media Usage)
  • Illustrate it by opening a search engine and type in a search term that will lead you to websites that are most likely not appropriate for children, like "sex" or "porn". This shows  that it is often only one click that brings children (intentionally or unknowingly) to a website that is not appropriate for them. 
  • Illustrate how easy measures can be to bring more safety. If you have a YouTube-Account, log in and put in a search term that brings again results that are not safe for children. Go to your profile settings afterward. There is an option in the menu "Restricted Mode" and turn it on. Perform the same search again and you should get fewer results that are not suitable for children.    
  • Just as YouTube mentions when you turn on the restricted mode: Whatever technical measures parents set up, there is never a 100% guarantee that kids will not get in contact with inappropriate content. Parents always need to make sure to prepare their children how to react in case they are confronted with inappropriate material: 
    • Talk to them early about the fact that they might come across things on the Internet that are not appropriate for children, like violent or sexual content and tell them how they can react to such a situation. This reduces the element of surprise or shock.
    • Encourage them to leave the situation or close their eyes in case somebody wants to show them inappropriate material (e.g. by classmates). Emphasize that it's not OK to expose others to such material and everybody has the right not to look at things he or she does not want to see
    • Encourage them to talk to someone about it in case they got in contact with inappropriate material. If you are the one they talk to, don't blame them even if they actively searched for the material. Focus on helping them coping with the situation.
    • Talk about it that some content is even illegal to show or share on the Internet. This can give them confidence to talk about incidents where they were exposed to such material but also prevent them from publishing such material themselves (a lot of inappropriate material is shared in class chats).     
• Group discussion: Gather experiences from your participants:
  • Have they ever been confronted with this problem in their work or family?
  • Have they already taken measures for their children (or grandchildren)?
  • What were their experience when they were young? Did they ever get in touch with inappropriate material and how did they react? 
• Input: Explain to participants the concept of accompanied digital media usage. Emphasize that there are no universal age recommendation as each child develops differently. Parents need to observe how their kids develop and adjust the media usage accordingly. 
  • Children should only use digital media together with an adult until they leave elementary school.
  • Children get their first smarphone with a limited mobile traffic so that they can't use the Internet outside the house excessively.
  • Young people between 14-16 years are ready to use digital media on their own.
  • Introduce the recommendations for each age group in Module 6 > 6.2. Accompanying Children Using Digital Media > Age-Appropriate Media Usage > Age Groups and Media Usage

• Group discussion: Ask participants about their experience with children and media. People might raise the issue that they feel forced by peer pressure to allow their children a more extensive usage than they personally would allow. Encourage people to set their own measure and that it is good for children to learn that there are different rules in different families. It also strengthens childrens ability to resist peer pressure themselves.
  • Do participants have the impression that they can estimate their childrens digital competence?
  • Do participants feel well with the way they are handling digital media in their family?
  • Have there been situations where children did not act as expected and maybe got into problematic situations? Encourage participants to talk about it as it helps other people to learn from this situation. 
• Exercise: Together with participants explore the age classifications systems that are available for families in your country. Show examples of game or video covers. Also point out age recommendations in app stores. However, these do not follow a standardized system. Each classification label has a website with detailed information how the classification is done. Discuss with participants if these characteristics match their personal estimations. These websites also include latest test results for digital media, which you can explore together with participants:
  • PEGI (Pan European Game Information) https://pegi.info
  • FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle der Filmwirtschaft) https://www.fsk.de/
  • USK (Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle) https://usk.de

• Reflection: 
  • Participants check at home, which digital media their children use.
  • Participants check either on the classification website or other recommendation websites if this media is appropriate for their children and discuss it with their children.

References​​​​​

• ​PEGI (Pan European Game Information) https://pegi.info
• FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle der Filmwirtschaft) https://www.fsk.de/
• USK (Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle) https://usk.de