So many kids are in front of so many screens filling their heads with so much content. Are you aware of ‘what’ they’re watching? It Matters.
We’re living in a world where it’s very hard to control what our kids are watching on screens. Moms and Grandmas and baby-sitters have all been guilty at times of plopping children in front of a screen to ‘buy time’, rather than really sit there and monitor exactly what they’re watching.
If you’re a parent or caretaker of children you need to be aware of ‘what’ they’re watching because it totally influences how young children think, behave and feel. Both good and bad.
I’m a PBS KIDS fan. They’re the number one children’s education media brand and Sara DeWitt is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of PBS KIDS. She’s responsible for the strategic direction of the very dynamic PBS KIDS media service that supports kids 2 to 8, their parents, teachers, caregivers, grandparents, and all the local communities. I invited her to join me to talk about the latest greatest at PBS KIDS and what they know and are utilizing from all the behavioral research time they’ve invested, in creating ‘good for the brain’ content.
Sara says, “We know that when kids are watching shows that are really thoughtful and created so that they are learning from them, that it really can model good behavior. It can get kids more interested in learning. It can help them actually learn some really important skills.”
“Summertime is a time where often kids kind of have some learning loss between the school years, but media can be a great way to help reinforce some of those things that kids learn in school, or if your kid hasn’t started school yet, say a four-year-old getting ready to go to preschool, media can really help with school readiness and get kids kind of in that mindset if you make some good choices and kind of really pay attention to what kids are watching.”
Sara says, for example for a four-year-old, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is really a great show. It’s based on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and all of that research that he did on that show where we know kids really can learn from the media. Daniel Tiger is helping kids recognize how they fit into the world, how they manage their own emotions, but it also gives kids great songs, give parents great songs that can reinforce those lessons at home.
(Sara’s kids, 8 and 11, grew up watching Daniel Tiger and just last night at dinner, she said, one of them sang, you gotta try new foods cause they might taste good. LOL Good job PBS!)
Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and Sesame Street, address pre-school confusions between friends and miscommunications.
For kids who are a little older, shows like ‘Arthur ‘do a great job addressing things like bullying and being scared or needing to talk to a grown-up.
Sara says, a really important media habit that they want people to set up that they try to model in their shows, is that when kids watch something or play something or listen to something, they should talk about it with their family, positive or negative. Even if adults haven’t watched the shows their kids watched themselves, they should get in the habit of asking questions about those shows and get their kids to talk about what they’re watching.
How kids show up to other kids is a very big thing. And again, a lot of parents don’t realize, I’m sure, that some of the stuff their kids are watching on other networks, on their screens, by accident, on YouTube, whatever that platform is, that parents have no clue about, might be creating negative behavior.
PBS KIDS work with child development experts and also subject matter experts so that every one of their shows is based on a curriculum and based on learning frameworks.
Curious George for example, is based on an engineering curriculum. George is really curious, he takes things apart and puts them back together.
“When you talk about child development and identity”, says Sara, “there are a couple of shows that I think are doing this really well right now. We have a show called Alma’s Way. It’s created by Sonia Manzano, who was Maria on Sesame Street. This is all about thinking through problems. Alma is playing with other kids, working with other kids. She lives in the Bronx. She’s Puerto Rican. And sometimes she messes up. And she has to stop and really think through that problem in order to decide what she’s going to do next. “
“Another one that I think is really great is called Rosie’s Rules. This one is based on a social studies curriculum. So when you’re talking about young kids, that is about who am I in relationship to the members of my family? So like, what does it mean that I am a sister? And how am I a good sister? And how am I a sister to my older step-sister and a sister to my younger brother? But then also getting to the next level of like, what does it mean that I’m in a community? How do I get mail? Who take the garbage out? So it gets into those things as well. “
PBS KIDS work with experts to help them think about the best, most age-appropriate way to introduce some of these ideas and to give kids a foundation that they can then build on as they grow up.
As new technology such as AI is being introduced, Sara DeWitt says, “now is the time to have a deeper, more open dialogue about positive digital media experiences for young children, and how we can use these tools to form good media habits that can address topics like children’s mental health, school readiness, critical thinking, and ultimately, the importance of human connection.”
PBS KIDS is making their good-for-the-brain content available to all kids, regardless of access to internet, age of devices, differing learning styles and abilities, and more.
If you have or care for young children, I encourage you to take a listen to this short podcast of my warm live conversation with Sara Dewitt SVP & GM PBS KIDS on The Debbie Nigro Show.
Adults need to educate themselves about how best to educate their children.
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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT (if you’d rather read than listen)
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And now back to the Debbie Nigro show.
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0:00:19
Okay, back in action. Hey everybody, welcome back to The Debbie Nigro Show. So guys, I don’t know if you have found that we’re living in a world where it’s very hard to control what our kids are watching on screens. I’m a grandma, and a mom, I watched my daughter, her friends, my friends, all of us guilty at some point of plopping kids in front of a television screen when you need to buy time, rather than really sit there and monitor exactly what they’re watching. I’ve got a great guest today on the show. We’re going to talk about this because I’m a huge fan of PBS. And Sara DeWitt is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of PBS Kids. She’s responsible for the strategic direction of the very dynamic PBS Kids media service that supports kids 2 to 8, their parents, teachers, caregivers, grandparents, and all the local communities. Welcome, Sarah.
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Hello.
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Hi, Debbie. It’s so great to be here.
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Yeah, nice job title you have.
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Thanks.
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Great. So, you’re over at PBS Kids. I’m a PBS fan since I was a kid. And I know they’re the number one children’s education media brand. I do put a lot of PBS shows on when I can in front of my granddaughter, who’s four, and now a one-year-old grandson. And I’m very clear that what kids are watching these days influences how they behave. And I also am very clear that kids’ behavior is sometimes negatively created by watching things they shouldn’t be watching, and parents are not aware. So, thanks for doing what you do. What’s the latest greatest from PBS Kids?
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0:02:03
So what you’re saying is absolutely true. We know that when kids are watching shows that are really thoughtful and created so that they are learning from them, that it really can model good behavior. It can get kids more interested in learning. It can help them actually learn some really important skills. So we’re thinking right now about the summertime.
Summertime is a time where often kids kind of have some learning loss between the school years, but media can be a great way to help reinforce some of those things that kids learn in school, or if your kid hasn’t started school yet, if you’re a four-year-old getting ready to go to preschool, media can really help with school readiness and get kids kind of in that mindset if you make some good choices and kind of really pay attention to what kids are watching. So for a four-year-old, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is really a great show. It’s based on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and all of that research that he did on that show where we know kids really can learn from the media. Daniel Tiger is really helping kids recognize how they fit into the world, how they manage their own emotions, but it also gives kids great songs, give parents great songs that can reinforce those lessons at home. So my kids are eight and 11. They grew up watching Daniel Tiger and just last night at dinner, one of them sang, you gotta try new foods cause they might taste good.
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0:03:32
So these- Oh, I didn’t think I would like that.
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0:03:33
I’m getting a little tired of row, row, row your boat in Old MacDonald, man, I gotta tell you. Thank you, I need a new song.
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These songs reinforce those kinds of lessons, yeah.
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0:03:45
How kids show up to other kids is a very big thing. And again, a lot of parents don’t realize, I’m sure, that some of the stuff they are watching on other networks, on their screens, by accident, on YouTube, whatever that platform is, might be creating negative behavior that parents have no clue about, and identity issues. We’re in a crazy time where everybody’s trying to figure out who they are and being told they have many options and this is of concern to many parents. And I just think that a good platform like PBS has thought this through and done a lot of research. Are there a lot of psychologists behind your programming?
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0:04:26
Yes, and child development experts and also subject matter experts. So, every one of our shows is based on a curriculum and based on learning frameworks. So, I bet you’re really familiar with Curious George. You’ve probably seen that show, it’s a lot of fun. A lot of parents don’t realize from the outset that that’s based on an engineering curriculum. George is really curious, he takes things apart and puts them back together. And so that’s really infused in our shows.
So when you talk about really like child development and identity, there are a couple of shows that I think are doing this really well right now. We have a show called Alma’s Way. It’s created by Sonia Manzano, who was Maria on Sesame Street, so you might recognize her from that. And this is all about thinking through problems. So Alma, you know, is playing with other kids, working with other kids. She lives in the Bronx. She’s Puerto Rican. And sometimes she messes up. And she has to stop and really think through that problem in order to decide what she’s going to do next.
Another one that I think is really great is called Rosie’s Rules. And this one is based on a social studies curriculum. So when you’re talking about young kids, that is about who am I in relationship to the members of my family? So even like, what does it mean that I am a sister? And how am I a good sister? And how am I a sister to my older step-sister and a sister to my younger brother? But then also getting to the next level of like, what does it mean that I’m in a community? How do I get mail? Who take the garbage out? So it gets into those things as well. But we really, we work with these experts to help us think about like, what’s the best, most age-appropriate way for us to introduce some of these ideas and to give kids a foundation that they can then build on as they grow up.
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I know we have new technology to worry about here, artificial intelligence. It’s shocking to me what the kids know about artificial intelligence and how they’re using it these days. Are you addressing that at PBS?
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Well, we’re thinking about the ways that it’s going to be incorporated into kids’ lives is one thing. And also then like how that technology is going to help kids, how it’s going to support kids learning, because we know it’s going to be integrated into much more things that kids do. And I think right now, one of the things I think is interesting is a lot of it is about asking questions right now and asking the right kinds of questions to get the information you need. If you even think about like, if you’ve seen a kid talk to a voice agent, like a Siri or an Alexa, you have to ask that question in the right way in order to get the answer you want or to find like the song you want. And this is a really important thing for kids to learn anyway in terms of like when they’re learning about science, if they’re asking good questions, they’re going to help get farther. So those are the kinds of things we’re thinking about now. How do you ask the right kinds of questions and how to find the information you need? And then how do you, shows like Molly of Denali start to get into media literacy? How do you know if you’re getting the right kind of information? How do you know what a good source is? So as kids get older, we can get deeper into those questions.
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0:07:48
I recently had a conversation that was, someone had a conversation with a 12-year-old about artificial intelligence, and these kids are using artificial intelligence as fake friends and fake boyfriends and, you know, it’s all about having somebody say that make you feel good about yourself, you know, addressing the, I guess, opposite of bullying, you know, are you taking, are you really listening to the conversations about bullying and self-esteem and young kids these days and talking about that in programming?
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Yeah. And this again is for the, you know, for younger kids, like shows like Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Sesame Street, like those talk about like preschool kind of like confusions between friends and miscommunications.
But as you get older, shows like Arthur do a great job addressing things like bullying and being scared or needing to talk to a grown-up. And I think this is something, too, that is a really important media habit that we want people to set up that we try to model in our shows is that when you watch something or play something or listen to something, this is something you should talk about with your family, positive or negative.
It’s a good critical thinking skill for kids to talk about what they watched or what they played, the games they played. It’s good for them when they’re younger. It’s kind of a literacy skill. This is what happened first, and then I did this, and then this is how I won that level or this is what happened to, you know, like Don Quixote today on the show and this is, you know, how it was resolved. That’s a good literacy skill.
As kids get older, it starts to be a conversation about, you know, if I had been in that situation, I think maybe I would have done this or I’m not sure what I would have done if my friend had lied to me like that, you know, and being able to talk those things through with a trusted grown up and taking that show, which is a safe space, and then being able to talk about it is actually really going to help prepare them for when they encounter these kinds of things in real life. They know-
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0:09:50
The problem is parents have to watch the shows too to know what the kids are talking about. So if I were PBS, I’d be encouraging the parents to watch as well.
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0:09:59
Yes, but I’ll say like, you know, where we started as parents are so busy sometimes they don’t. So, a recommendation I make and what I did during the pandemic when my kids were at home with me is meal times was when we talked about the shows. So, I would say, hey, what happened on Wild Kratts today? Which animal was it? Whoa, what did they do? And then my older one was starting to watch shows like Arthur and we could get into more conversation. So even if you haven’t seen the show, you can ask questions and start to get deeper and have your kid tell you about it.
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0:10:33
And that- So wait, I got it. I just had a brainstorm. How artificial intelligence can help PBS cheat cheats for parents on the shows.
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That’s it.
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0:10:41
Yes.
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0:10:42
Well, we don’t need artificial intelligence for that. We’ve already got it.
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0:10:45
We have those.
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On pbskids.org, we offer questions for parents for the shows.
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0:10:51
Yeah.
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That’s really good.
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0:10:53
Well, you’re joyful. I love that PBS is making good for the brain content. That was a line that I read you guys said, and I think that’s the only line that matters in this conversation because as we go forward, all we can hope for is that we fill our kids’ heads with the right stuff, and not everybody has time to figure out what that is, and PBS has. So thank you very much for that. I think it’s great stuff you know.
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0:11:16
Thank you, thanks Debbie.
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And before we, one person I want to talk about just before we leave because we’re doing radio but you have somebody in your office called Word Girl.
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Yes.
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0:11:27
Who is she? I love her.
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Word Girl is a superhero, she’s on the PBS Kids video app, you can download that for free if you want to watch Word Girl. She has super speed, super strength and massive vocabulary. So a literacy show about how you use words for power.
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0:11:45
My gosh, I was her as a kid. I just didn’t have the outfit. I didn’t know. This is brilliant. Okay, words are powerful. They can make or break somebody’s day, make or break a kid’s day, make or break a parent’s day. The kids today need as much direction we can give them. I noticed during the pandemic, they were spent a lot of time with their parents and adults. There’s a lack of ability to know what’s supposed to be happening in their own age group for a lot of them because of that. We’re coming out of a weird time. Thank you, PBS, for addressing it. And let’s stay close, Sara DeWitt, Senior Vice President and General Manager at PBS Kids. Thank you for joining me on the show today. It was meaningful.
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0:12:22
Thank you so much, Debbie. Have a great day.
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I was just getting all excited about Word Girl again. You know, I could be like Word Grammy, you know, and maybe I can have a cape. I don’t know what that would look like, but in this stage of my life, you know, something sparkly, something sparkly. The kids, we can’t do enough to protect our kids, and I’m glad we took the time on the technology side. I do want to talk about the swimming side of things. I was with my grandkids this week at the pool. One’s one years old and one is four years old, right? And of course, I’m in charge and I’m a nervous wreck because I want to make sure everybody you know is safe Couldn’t figure out the tube for the one-year-old. I have like seven mothers Helping me. We got it. We got it. You know group group intelligence and the four-year-old learned how to jump right just Jump got past the fear and now it was non-stop all day long Which is great because she’s very hyperactive and anybody who’s got kids out there who have high energy, you don’t know what to do with them, get them in the pool, make sure they’re safe and let them just keep going. They’ll go to sleep at like, I don’t know, six o’clock at night. But more importantly, by the fourth birthday, most kids are ready for swim lessons. It’s very important to acknowledge that water survival skills training and swim lessons can help reduce the drowning risk for kids between the ages of one and four. I know there’s a lot of schools that get babies in, teach them how to float, very young, right? And kids develop at different rates. They’re not all ready to begin swim lessons exactly the same age, right? So it’s just a tough time of year. Everybody out in pools and with people who have pools. There’s so many bad stories of these, you know, kids who accidentally came upon a pool and couldn’t swim, right? So the American Academy of Pediatrics would love you to pay attention, okay? And add swim lessons as a layer of protection against drowning that can begin for many kids starting at age one. All right? Okay. All right, more to come. You know, words. Let’s talk about words for a second. How many of you have tried to have fun with Siri, asking Siri questions and wondering how she’ll answer, just to amuse yourself? Raise your hand. Yeah, yeah, me too. Come on back, I’ve got some really funny things that Siri’s been asked. I made a list that made the internet. Next.
