Disclaimer first: this is one example of a conversation, this is not a script you should copy verbatim. This is a convo with an older child/tween, not a conversation with a younger child or a child just learning to express emotions. Use this as a starting point, not a script, and if doesn’t work for you, that’s fine!
I hear so much about how kids “behave badly” after they watch certain content, and I think there’s a huge digital literacy piece that we are often overlooking: kids need to learn the purpose of entertainment media.
When I was in the 2nd grade, my elementary school had a moral panic about Power Rangers. Kids were “playing” Power Rangers at recess, and pretending to fight each other. Sometimes that “pretending” got a little too real. Did the school teach us about pretend versus real fighting? Did they explain that even actors are pretending to fight? Did they show us an alternative way to pretend play without fighting? No. They just blamed Power Rangers and told our parents to not let us watch it. (Spoiler alert: we all kept watching it, but some of us did start hiding it from our parents!)
It’s frankly simple and easy to blame the creator or the content medium when our kid copies something. We could say “it’s YouTube’s fault!” but like my 90’s era example, that doesn’t actually address the issue. The issue is- kids need to understand the purpose behind media, and figure out how (or if) that should apply to their lives.
A child probably isn’t going to pretend to be a content creator every time they make a mistake. But if the way they are learning to cope with mistakes is by lashing out and exaggerating to get attention and deflect from feeling discomfort, THAT is an issue. But we don’t solve that issue by blaming YouTube or modern media. We solve it by leaning in- by getting curious, by noticing, by asking questions, and by listening to what our kids have to say.
That will get us way farther in not only understanding what our kids are thinking and feeling, but helping them understand it as well and help them find sustainable ways of processing those feelings.
