Blog Posts by Common Sense Media

By Regan McMahon, Common Sense Media editor

Common Sense MediaWhen your kid's summer camp tells you to just pack the essentials -- swim suit, sunscreen, sleeping bag -- a cell phone is usually not on the list. In fact, it's generally on the "What Not to Bring" list. But for parents, staying in touch with our kids feels essential, and some find it's not so easy to break the habit.

A couple of summers ago, we sent our daughter to a two-week sleep-away surf camp in San Diego with a group of girls from her school. A few weeks before departure, the girls' parents got together and someone brought up the camp's no-cell-phone-policy. One mom told how the previous year she snuck one into her daughter's duffel bag anyway and the girl got busted and had her phone confiscated. But the woman bragged that she was going to do it again this year.

Apart from sending a dubious message that it's OK to break the rules, the mom didn't seem to understand the reasoning behind the rule.

As explained on the

By Sierra Filucci, Common Sense Media editor

Common Sense MediaWalk past a supermarket checkout stand near summertime and you can't help but see models and celebs in bikinis plastered across magazine covers. Tween favorites like Selena Gomez and Katy Perry appear all over the Internet in glamorous outfits with incredible hair and makeup. And ads on billboards, buses and subways display long-legged models selling everything from liquor to lipstick.

Kids are bombarded with images of men and women -- famous or not -- who look incredibly perfect. Too perfect, in fact. And that's thanks to photo editing, which, as many of us parents know, can eliminate a model's pimples, make a celeb's cellulite disappear, and make legs longer, waists slimmer, and erase wrinkles.

Pull Back the Curtain

But kids aren't always so savvy. Kids who see unrealistic bodies or faces or clothing -- especially on folks they admire -- can feel inadequate as a result. In fact, several studies have shown that reading

By Ingrid Simone, Common Sense Media editor

Common Sense Media"Is it that bad to let your kids watch Aliens?" My ex-husband posed this question to me -- and he was dead serious. Did I mention that our kids are 6 and 8?

For the most part, my ex and I agree on media choices for the kids, and we try to be respectful of each other's wishes. He'll ask what I think about an app before installing it for the kids. I'll ask him about a video game he's familiar with before I buy it. And we often tap each other's memories (as well as the Common Sense Media site!) when we're picking out classic DVDs from our childhood to share with the kids.

Figuring out media rules for your own home is a challenge in itself, but trying to find middle ground across two households and between two people who -- shockingly -- might not agree on everything, can be twice as challenging. Especially during the summer, when kids aren't in school and might be spending more time in each parent's household.

While camp and

By Julia D. Akpan, Common Sense Media editor

Common Sense MediaThe final school bell rings, and kids stream out of the building with nothing on their minds but three months of lying on the grass, riding bikes, going away to camp, and hours and hours of unsupervised Web surfing ... wait, what?

Welcome to summer vacation 2012, where your kids may be envisioning a vacation packed with tech time. Since you want fun, safe, and enriching places for your kid to visit, we've rounded up some of the most popular websites for kids, along with great parent tips to help you manage their experience.

Twitter

At this micro-blogging social networking site, kids can follow celebrities, friends, organizations, and even companies like Nike or charities like Greenpeace. Kids over 13 can tweet for themselves, too. Because Twitter is easily connected to other social media outlets, teens' tweets immediately show up on their Facebook page -- or their friends' smartphones.

• Keep an eye out: Take a look

By Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media Reviewer

Summer Movie Preview

With sequels, explosive superhero adventures, and eye-popping animated flicks taking over theaters this summer, it might be hard to decide what will be worth your family's time (and money!). From the highly anticipated Marvel "dream team" blockbuster The Avengers to fresh fun with the Madagascar and Ice Age gangs, here's a month-by-month cheat sheet to help you decide which high-profile movies will be age appropriate for your kids.

May

The Avengers (May 4)
Target Age: Older Tweens and Teens
What's the Buzz: What's better than a superhero flick? A movie about a group of superheroes, from sweet Captain America (Chris Evans) and burly Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to rakish Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and green-with-anger Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). This Marvel "dream team" unites to save the Earth from the nefarious Loki and his legions of destruction. Expect epic tween interest -- and plenty of comic book-style mayhem.

Recently, my 5-year-old and I walked into a room full of kids playing video games at a birthday party. "You suck!" shouted one kid to another. "I'm going to kick your ass!" the kid yelled back. My son looked up at me with wide eyes -- he was shocked, and I think, a bit thrilled to see bigger kids using words that he still considers taboo.

For my part, I was glad he was shocked. It hasn't been easy keeping swearing out of my kids' lives.

For one thing, my husband and I can let a few strong words fly when we're frustrated or forget we're in the company of kids. And some of the TV shows my kids watch on Saturday mornings tend to pepper the action with words like "stupid" and "jerk."

As kids get older, they come across strong language in everything from YouTube videos to online comments. And lately, the amount of swearing on some of tweens' and teens' favorite TV shows seems to have bumped up a few notches. Preschool-age character

By Sierra Filucci, Common Sense Media Reviewer
With its abundant outdoor play area and passionate teachers, my kids' school seemed like an oasis from the modern world of electronic entertainment. But when I picked my kids up from their after-school program, I was sometimes surprised to find them watching movies instead of drawing, reading, or playing outside. At first I chalked it up to the fact that the rain had made the play area pretty muddy. But when it happened again on a sunny day, I got angry.

Not only do they get enough time with movies and TV on the weekends, but I didn't like the idea that I was paying someone to watch them watch movies. Besides, I didn't have any control over which movies my kids were seeing. What if something scared my son? What if my daughter had questions about what she just saw? What kinds of guidance were they getting after the movies ended? Was I going to have to leave all of this to chance?

Despite feeling a bit nervous about taking my

By Caroline Knorr, Common Sense Media Reviewer
thinkstock One of the biggest surprises about raising kids in today's media-and-tech-filled world is that it's not the shadowy, dangerous place we've been warned about. Yes, there's iffy stuff out there, but much of what kids can discover is enriching, inspiring, practical, helpful, and fun.

That doesn't mean that you can let your kids loose with no limits or guidance. A big part of parenting today involves knowing what your kids are doing online, teaching them to be responsible and respectful, and helping them make good choices. In other words, teaching them to participate constructively and age appropriately.

Spurred by new research and new thinking -- and a strong impulse for spring cleaning -- we're challenging the conventional wisdom about managing kids' entertainment.

Brush the cobwebs off the old thinking, and usher in some fresh new ideas about how to manage everything from the Internet to iTunes.

Television:

Old think: TV