Computer games and fast food have been blamed by doctors for a startling rise in the number of children being treated in hospital for sleep disorders.

Eating too much sugary food is also blamed for preventing children from dropping off to sleep.

Newly released NHS figures show that the number of under-11s referred to hospital specialists for insomnia, sleep-walking and sleep-related breathing problems has rocketed by 26 per cent over the past five years.

But the true numbers affected could be much higher because the figures reflect only those seeking medical help.

Studies have linked poor sleep to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). And lack of sleep harms children’s ability to learn at school.

Psychologist Chireal Shallow, of the Naturally Nurturing clinic for children’s sleep disorders in London, said: “There are likely to be thousands more children whose parents do not seek treatment.

“A lot of the problem is guilty parenting where kids are allowed the rule of the roost because Mum and Dad come home from work late.

“The light, sound and movement of television or computer screens is stimulating and keeps children awake and there should be at least an hour’s gap before going to bed.”

Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “It’s absolutely crazy for parents to let their children go to bed any time they like.

“Parents need to exert more authority and remove computer games from bedrooms to make sure kids have the best start in life. I’m sure teachers would be delighted.”

The NHS statistics show nearly 3,000 children under 11 had their sleep monitored overnight by specialists during 2006 compared with only 2,200 in 2002.

Of those, 1,733 were boys.

Professor Jim Horne of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University, said that children aged five to eight are particularly vulnerable to sleep problems as a result of ‘electronic distractions’ because having a rigid bedtime routine is so important to them.

“If they sleep better, the ADHD symptoms disappear.”

Jane Howell, 34, from Morden, South West London, struggled for years to get her son Marcel, now 13, to sleep.

After spending most of the day at school in front of a computer, Marcel would spend the evenings watching television but then found it hard to drop off, often not falling asleep until just a few hours before he had to be up again. “Eventually the problem got so bad that Jane approached a sleep clinic. “She said: “The clinic asked me about his routines and said computers, televisions and mobile phones were a distraction.

“They told me to minimise the time he uses computers and after 8pm it’s now wind-down time.

“He now has much more energy and is sleeping better. As parents you have to be hard on your kids. They want to do their own thing but you have to be strict.”

Dr Rob Primhak, a consultant paediatric respiratory physician at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, said there was now a shortage of specialists due to the numbers coming in.

“There has been a huge surge in demand,” he said.

Mandy Gurney, of the Millpond Children’s Sleep Clinic in London, said: “Not getting a good night’s sleep can have the same effect as four units of alcohol, so imagine what it is like for a child.”

Source: Daily Mail, UK
http://tinyurl.com/4ktvhr

Boys at nursery should be allowed to play with toy guns, despite claims from women’s groups that it makes them aggressive and could lead to long-term damage.

Researchers want unofficial bans on pretend weapons in Scotland’s nurseries to be scrapped, claiming they play an important role in a child’s development.

Government agency Learning and Teaching Scotland teamed up with a Perthshire primary school to carry out the study.

It found that playing with toy guns promoted boys’ learning and inclusion, boosted their imagination and prevented the playtime sport from being driven ’underground’.

Women’s groups said the return of pretend weapons to nurseries “re-inforced age-old stereotypes.”

But Murdo Fraser, MSP, the Scottish Conservative deputy leader, welcomed the findings and said: “This is one in the eye for the politically correct brigade.

“Little boys will always want to play with make-believe weapons and it has been completely misguided to try and ban them from schools and nurseries.

“I’m glad to see good sense prevailing at last.”

And Eleanor Coner, information officer for the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, said boys were only playing an exciting game and did not understand the adult connotations.

She added: “It is in a little boy’s make-up to want to do that sort of thing. We are thinking that they are shooting each other.

“They don’t know they are shooting each other, they are just making a noise and shouting ’bang’ because that’s exciting.”

Jenny Kemp, of women’s support group Zero Tolerance, however, believes toy guns in nurseries is a bad idea.

Miss Kemp said: “Young children need to learn from an early age that violence is preventable.

“Nursery teachers have a clear role to play in this. They need to intervene when boys or girls want to play in aggressive ways, and to help children understand that there are different ways of showing that you are strong or brave.

“Re-inforcing age-old stereotypes about boys’ so called ’natural’ interest in guns and fighting is not helpful.

“What is needed is a real effort to break down the sterotypes that hold children back and can have lasting and damaging effects on their life chances.”

Nursery teacher Cath Livingstone reversed a toy gun ban for the study because she felt children were being forced to play away from the adults.

Miss Livingstone said: “No matter what was said, guns just went underground. The shooting and martial arts continued when some of our boys believed they were away from adult supervision.

“By playing banned games, they were breaking the rules. They appeared to feel they needed to be deceitful in order to pursue an activity to which they felt drawn.”

The research was carried out at Abernethy Primary School Nursery Class in Perthshire. The majority of early learning centres have banned toy guns to try to prevent youngsters growing into tearaways.

But Ms Livingstone said there was no rise in bad behaviour when they were allowed back into the classroom.

To prevent fighting, any youngsters playing with pretend weapons were not allowed to touch other children. Children were only allowed to ’shoot’ those involved in the game.

Ms Livingstone added: “The children, and in particular the boys, have become more open with the adults in the setting and happier to discuss and so construct their knowledge about the world.

“They have also become more considerate of others, aggression has not been an issue.”

Source: UK Express, UK
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/41066/Let-boys-have-guns-say-experts

A proposal to restrict the sale of violent video games in Massachusetts has caused famed horror author Stephen King (…), who admits he is no fan of video games, to speak out against what he refers to as the government’s surrogate parenting.

“According to the proposed bill, violent video games are pornographic and have no redeeming social merit,” he wrote in an Entertainment Weekly column. “What makes me crazy is when politicians take it upon themselves to play surrogate parents. The results of that are usually disastrous. Not to mention undemocratic.”

Designated HB 1423, the state legislation would limit the sale of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. “Which means, by the way, that a 17-year-old who can get in to see Hostel: Part II would be forbidden by law from buying (or renting, one supposes) the violent but less graphic Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” King pointed out. “If there’s violence to be had, the kids are gonna find a way to get it.”

Instead of a state-mandated restriction on violent game sales–many of which have been found to be unconstitutional in the past–King suggested that parents make an effort to take a more active role in raising their children as video games are not the only readily available source of violence in America.

“There’s a lot more to America’s culture of violence than Resident Evil 4,” he explained. “Parents need to have the guts to forbid material they find objectionable…and then explain why it’s being forbidden. They also need to monitor their children’s lives in the pop culture–which means a lot more than seeing what games they’re renting down the street.”

Source: Shacknews
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52090

Fine line between normal use and going overboard

A few weeks ago, Walnut Creek Intermediate’s auditorium was crammed with parents eager to hear therapist Steven Freemire’s take on Wii, iPhones and cyber-addiction.

He started the talk with a few examples drawn from friends’ and patients’ experiences, including the following scenario: It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon, and a Walnut Creek teen is indoors, gazing unblinking at the flickering screen. For hours, she buffets the game-controller buttons, eager to reach the next level and the next and the next. Finally, six hours later, she tears herself away and goes on with her day.

“Problem?” Freemire asked.

Seventy hands shoot up.

In truth, however, the answer is no. This particular girl has a great circle of friends, gets consistently good grades and plays competitive soccer. And after an intense week, capped off by a Saturday spent on the soccer field, she was simply decompressing on a Sunday - her one day to relax - with a new video game.

“Six hours could be a danger,” Freemire said. “It wasn’t in this case.”

Less than a year after the American Medical Association backed away from labeling video-game addiction a mental illness, the debate rages on, particularly for the families of the 10percent to 14percent of avid gamers who have become so obsessed with video games, Facebook and other computer- based pastimes that their virtual lives are damaging their reality.

“There’s a fine line between addiction and the fact that most of our lives are spent on online,” said Larry Rosen, a California State University, Dominguez Hills, professor who wrote Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation.

“Kids? Their whole social life is online. They’re IMing, and if you throw in texting and (school) work, it’s 50 hours a week. Is that addicted or are they just responding to their world?”

The line is crossed, he says, when grades drop, chores go undone, and children disappear from the family dinner table, wooed by the allure of that glowing screen.

It’s not just teens, of course. While we most frequently associate cyber-addiction with video games, adults are notorious for their dependency on BlackBerrys, compulsive e-mail checking and the “just one more thing” approach that keeps them online half the night, Lafayette therapist Dominic D’Ambrosio said.

A 2006 Stanford School of Medicine study found that 14percent of the nation’s Internet users - adults, not kids - found it difficult to stay off-line for several days, and nearly 9percent had lied about their Internet use to spouses, friends and colleagues.

And according to a Harris Interactive poll conducted last year, the average adolescent plays 13 hours of video games each week. Teen boys average 18 hours.

Interestingly, young gamers worry about their own level of addiction. About 44percent of the young gamers in the survey reported their friends were “addicted,” and 23percent of the boys said they worried about themselves, as well.

Determining addiction is about more than just adding up the hours, said Douglas Gentile, an Iowa State psychology professor who directs research at the National Institute on Media and the Family.

Gentile adapted gambling addiction criteria from the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual on mental disorders to paint a vivid pathological portrait of kids - and adults - whose obsession with and need for increasing amounts of game play to reach the same level of thrill, spills into the rest of life, sabotaging relationships, school, work and eventually health.

But if families and video gamers themselves knew what to watch for, experts say, problems could be alleviated before they become destructive.

Yet, self-regulation is key, Freemire said, because trying to ban the Internet is like banning food. It’s too ingrained in daily life at school, at work and at home, precisely because of its positives.

Text messages become notes of reassurance flowing between kids at college and their siblings back home. Facebook, Skype and Web cams bring faraway friends and family close. And Joseph Ross’ grandparents swing by his Pleasant Hill house each week to play.

“They always want to do the Wii bowling,” said Joseph’s mom, Julie. “My dad’s 83, and we can’t keep him away from the Wii.”

Source: Los Angeles Daily News, CA
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_8825402

‘Kids don’t need protection, we need guidance.” That quote from an unnamed British child appears in Safer Children in a Digital World: The Report of the Byron Review. The review, initiated by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in September and conducted by clinical psychologist Tanya Byron, was released late last week in Britain and was front-page news there. Child safety, the Internet, video games - these are hot topics.

However, the report has been largely ignored in Canada. I spent several days this week calling federal and provincial officials, looking for someone who had at least heard of the thing and could comment on its relevance here, and it did not bear much fruit. Still, after reading the report’s 226 pages, I think one thing is clear: A lot more people in Canada, parents especially, should read it too.

Dr. Byron was asked to analyze the risks and benefits presented by new technologies, specifically the Internet and video games, and their impact on childhood brain development. Her task was to look at what was already being done in Britain to safeguard kids from online predators and material meant for adults, whether in games or on websites, and then make recommendations for improvements.

In terms of video games, the report does all this masterfully. It is a beacon of common sense in what can be a polarized debate.

On the violence front, for example, there is a school of thought, based on research conducted almost exclusively in the United States, that games desensitize players to violence and actively lead them astray. (Last week, one British tabloid offered hundreds of pounds to anyone who would publicly trace their criminal behaviour back to video games; there have been no takers yet.) At the opposite end of the spectrum are proponents of the “catharsis effect,” the idea that exposure to violent content can purge players of their violent compulsions.

Dr. Byron parsed the existing research into those theories, and found almost all of it wanting. Throughout the video-game sections and the rest of the report, she urges people to “take into account children’s individual strengths and vulnerabilities, because the factors that can discriminate a ‘beneficial’ from a ‘harmful’ experience online and in video games will often be individual factors in the child.”

The review calls for a comprehensive marketing and education program, paid for by industry and government, to better prepare parents and children for their increasingly digital lives.

Her findings also set out three main areas of concern related to games and young minds: 1) Games can take up too much time and get in the way of other activities; 2) online games carry with them the risk of exposure to potentially harmful outsiders, in the same way the Internet does; and 3) young people often gain access to games meant for an older audience.

Regarding that last issue, Dr. Byron recommended that parents be made more aware of parental controls that can filter content for individual players on game consoles and computers. The review also calls for the British video-game rating system to be overhauled so that film classifications, with which parents are familiar, appear on the front of game packaging. It will be a big switch for the British review board, but it would be even more onerous here: Canada has seven provincial agencies charged with classifying movies, and all video games are currently rated by the U.S.-based Entertainment Software Rating Board.

Of course, since the Conservatives seem to be guided by the philosophy that government is useless, I don’t expect meaningful action on Internet and gaming issues any time soon.

That shouldn’t stop parents and others, however, from cherry-picking from this impressive, balanced piece of work. The full report, an executive summary and a special section for kids can be found at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/byronreview.

Source: Globe and Mail, Canada
http://tinyurl.com/4fhz73

Asked by Gordon Brown to investigate the new dangers to children being brought up in the digital age, Tanya Byron last week produced a 224-page report. The child psychologist’s recommendations included a cinema-style system of classification for video games and a thorough public education campaign. However, she warns that protecting children against all risks stunts their development and an important part of growing up is learning to assess and deal with danger

Shortly before she published a report last week on keeping children safe in the online age, Dr Tanya Byron was invited to lunch with Gordon Brown at Chequers. It was a family affair: Byron, her husband Bruce, who plays DC Terry Perkins in The Bill, and their two children, Lily, 12, and Jack, 10, all went along.

Lunch at the prime minister’s country estate is the sort of occasion when any parent would want their little ones to be bright, presentable and on their best behaviour. But not even Byron, a child psychologist who has advised millions on parenting through her television series, is immune from modest rebellion.

“My son piped up just before we were going and he said, ‘Mummy, I could take my PlayStation and I could really make you scared in front of the prime minister’.”

He could. The prospect of son Jack smuggling in some dodgy game and whipping out his portable PlayStation to blast away in front of the prime minister had Byron “feeling slightly twitchy”. That’s not surprising given that she was about to advise Brown on how to protect young children from unsuitable computer material. But in typical calm style she simply said: “No, darling. You don’t play those games, so let’s not go there.”

A tall, curvaceous woman with wide eyes and a warm smile, Byron must be as annoying as hell to all those postfeministas who say you can’t have it all. She is clever, articulate, attractive and a natural performer, as well as being a mother and government adviser.

Although most people know her from television programmes such as Little Angels and The House of Tiny Tearaways, she is no pop-psycho with more beauty than brains. She did her first degree at York, a masters at University College London and a doctorate at University College hospital and Surrey University.

For 18 years she worked in the National Health Service, rising to be a consultant for children with severe mental disorders. She still works one day a week as a consultant in child mental health, although most of her time is taken up filming with the BBC.

Glamour, fame, acclaim – yet Byron, 41, also retains the common sense of an ordinary mum: making her the perfect candidate for a report into children growing up in a world where the risks, as well as benefits, of the internet and computer games are all-pervasive.

“When I came to doing the report . . . concerns were very much fuelled by a lack of understanding of the technology. People were asking, is it all big, bad and scary out there? I know a lot more than I did six months ago. It’s made me feel more positive and confident and less anxious.”

Of course she recognises the dangers – from paedophiles to porn, violence and cyberbullying. In her report, which arrived with much ministerial fanfare last week, she carefully examines the scientific evidence about how children are affected by nasty computer games or hardcore porn. Research, she concludes, shows mixed results.

Although, for example, there is a correlation between aggression and playing violent computer games, it’s not clear that there is a causal relationship – that violent games make children more violent. Convenient, since any kind of ban would be a political minefield. In person, though, she is more forthright. “I’m really clear that adult content is harmful and inappropriate for young children particularly,” she says. “They do not have the neural networks in place to be able to critically evaluate the content, to differentiate fantasy from reality.”

Byron would like the law on such matters to be clearer and to be applied with more vigour: “I am saying clarify the law . . . be clear about when there is content on websites that is breaking the law.”

She also encourages parents to challenge the classification of computer games if they think they are inappropriate: “It’s important to have a system where there can be a challenge, where people can complain.”

A less astute person might have let such conclusions suck them into recommending censorship of violent games or websites. Byron knows that won’t work: “If you go down the censorship route, the content would still be there somewhere. Children would go online to websites outside the UK, to unmoderated sites.” And parents, already struggling to keep up, might have even less idea what their youngsters are doing.

“The rapid pace at which new media are evolving has left adults and children stranded either side of a generational digital divide,” she says. Older people may still regard the internet as a parallel universe that somehow arrives through a machine at the office or home, but for youngsters it’s a seamless part of their lives. They are the cyborg generation.

The answer, Byron believes, is to trust in the better side of human nature. Families can navigate the risks provided they are informed and sensible. “I’m more of a ‘half-full’ girl than a ‘half-empty’ girl. That’s how I like to live life,” she explains.

Her report, which runs to more than 200 pages, is packed with recommendations some of which the government has promised to adopt. Key measures include a UK council on child internet safety to develop voluntary codes of practice for the industry and better information for the public; teaching adults about “parental control” systems on computers; a new classification of computer games like those used for films; and courses in schools to teach children “e-safety”.

It’s hard to argue against any of it (although whether the portly public sector needs yet another quango is debatable). Byron, using common sense, already regulates her children’s use of computers: “They don’t have a computer in their own rooms. We have got some in the office and one downstairs in the kitchen. Gaming and going online is good . . . but in a way that is right for their age and stage of development. It’s something you do after your homework. It never takes place instead of a family meal. When my son is gaming and I’m cooking, he’s there and I know what he’s doing.”

Her daughter, two years older, is given more leeway and Byron admits that she does not know exactly what her daughter does online: “We have a good relationship and I respect her privacy. In the same way I don’t know entirely what’s in her diary. But I know my child; I know when something has upset them or when they are distressed.”

They talk, they work it out, just as they would some other problem.

That, in a nutshell, is how Byron believes parents should approach bringing up children in the digital age. You can buy software to block websites, you can spy on children’s internet history, you can restrict access when they are young – but in the end children are going to go out into the big wide world and need to be able to look after themselves.

“We live in a risk-averse culture, but risk is a developmental imperative of childhood and I think we need to recognise that. It’s about fostering the independent child. What I want to get across is that [dealing with the online world] is similar to how we would parent children in the offline world.”

That old world has its own temptations, for adults as well as children. It’s clear that Byron enjoys the cameras and corridors of power: “I really like advising politicians. I really liked saying to the PM this morning, ‘The UK child internet safety council, you set it up, we could take a global lead, what do you reckon?’ And he says, ‘Okay’.”

Is she going to be on the internet safety council? “Oh no,” she laughs. “I’m outta here. It’s all about kids for me. I’d much rather work on behalf of children.” So she doesn’t want to be a politician? She gives that big disarming smile again: “Do you know, I really like advising them…”

She has already become too much of a politician to say no.

Source: Times Online, UK
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article3645034.ece

The Government’s latest guru, Dr Tanya Byron – from the BBC parenting series Little Angels – has completed a report into children’s safety in the New Media age.

By “safety” the report means not only protection from invisible online predators, but avoiding any material that may be overly aggressive or just plain inappropriate for young minds.

Of special concern are video-game classifications and uninhibited online surfing.

When it comes to games, the advice is robust.

Parents are urged not to let children play video games alone in their bedrooms but to insist they play them only in the living room or kitchen, where they can be better monitored.

A 2006 poll of 1,300 families found that seven in ten children had their own television while six in ten had a games console. Yet countless studies show that children with bedroom TVs score lower on school tests and are more likely to have sleep problems.

But those two words “insist” and “monitor” really stand out in Dr Tanya’s report.

The reason TVs and games consoles will stay in bedrooms, despite Dr Tanya’s best efforts, is clear if you’ve ever watched the excellent and addictive BBC show Honey We’re Killing The Kids: insisting on no TV in the bedroom equals sulks, door-slamming, threats to leave home and silent family dinners.

Are you brave enough to risk that?

As for monitoring – namely peering over the shoulder to watch the computer screen as an already sulky ten-year-old explores Bebo or the like – it is a terrifying prospect for so many parents.

Dr Tanya, I wish this report would make a difference but there’s absolutely no chance the majority will act on your well thought-out, well intentioned recommendations.

I can already hear the maternal opt-out cries of: “He plays Doom in his best mate’s room so what’s the point?”

Anyway, it has become more difficult to work out what is unsuitable for our offspring to watch even when we’re in the same room. In just a generation the phrase “not in front of the children” has all but died out.

Everything’s fine so long as it’s before the sanctified watershed.

On Good Friday the BBC confused and then outraged parents when a main character in EastEnders was shown being buried alive, a full hour before ‘family’ TV time officially ends.

The blurring of lines between adult-only and child-friendly entertainment caught me out too this week. I merrily sat down with my seven- and five-year-old daughters to watch Austin Powers, the spoof spy film set in the Sixties. I thought it would be silly, slapstick viewing.

In fact it was grossly inappropriate.

Now my eldest, Alex, is asking “What’s a Mojo?” and “Why do women suck chess pieces?” Dr Tanya’s research has shown that parents are most worried by predators and children are most concerned by cyber-bullying.

What we should all be concerned about is our diabolical laziness.

As a parenting nation we’re emotionally obese, cowardly and slavishly reliant on the very technology that could seriously damage a generation.

Source: Daily Mail, UK
http://tinyurl.com/35brzv

Author delves into the differences in which boys should be raised in It’s a Boy

If you truly believe that there is no difference be- tween boys and girls, stop reading here. However, if you think that there are biological factors that make a difference in how boys and girls grow up and experience the world, then Michael Thompson’s new book may be for you.

Thompson’s premise is not very radical: While males and females have lots in common and are both valuable to society, there are certain differences that influence how they learn and grow from babies to adulthood. Boys learn better in active situations, whereas young girls have better focus in traditional educational settings. Boys are more likely to roughhouse with their friends, not because they are violent but because they connect better with each other via physical activity rather than verbal communication. And boys generally have a different emotional response to stress than do girls.

To raise boys well, parents and teachers need to understand what makes boys tick and how they can use boys’ natural inclinations to bring out the best in them. Thompson outlines these natural tendencies and makes useful suggestions for raising our sons to become healthy, productive men. He also tackles tough social issues, such as how to deal with different parenting styles (for example, some moms let their boys play with toy guns, some don’t); difficult teen issues (suicide and destructive behaviors); and basic inclinations (such as why boys love dinosaurs, trading cards and video games). But the greatest value is Thompson’s common sense approach to the fears parents often have with their boys, reassuring us that their natural tendencies are not “bad,” nor are they indicators of bad parenting. As he notes, “You should not have to feel that your son’s impulsiveness or activity levels are either (1) your fault or (2) signs that he is growing up to be an ax murderer. He is almost certainly not. If play-fighting and whacking another child (and I don’t mean that in the Mafia sense of the word) on the playground were signs of future aggression, then most men would be murderous adults, and they are not.”

Source: The Free Lance-Star, VA
http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/032008/03302008/364554

The author of the study into children’s use of the internet and video games talks about why she took on the task - and what she hopes it will achieve

Yesterday, Dr Tanya Byron emerged from six months of intensive research on children’s use of the internet, to announce a package of measures, including clearer classification on video games, an awareness campaign and the setting up of a council for child internet safety.

Twelve hours earlier, she is sitting with me in a boardroom in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, looking tired but glamorous (“I’m 41 and I look about 106,” she says) and explaining how it came about. “It was a little surreal,” she admits. “My colleague rang me to say there had been an approach from Downing Street, and we thought it must be a hoax.

“But there I was, sitting in the back garden with the Prime Minister,” she says. “I met him the day that his eldest son was starting nursery and he spoke to me as a father, which was really lovely.

“There was a real personal feel to it. As a father of two young children, he recognised that this was a challenge. We talked a lot about it and, as a clinical psychologist who worked with kids, and as a mother of two children who use all these technologies, I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Her feeling of unreality continued when her husband, Bruce, a.k.a, D.C. Terry Perkins in The Bill, was learning a script about online child exploitation. “He asked my advice, and I said, you deal with the fantasy, I’m dealing with the reality.”

I’m not sure whether it was the Prime Minister’s idea to put Byron in charge of the review, but it was a stroke of genius. A plain-speaking parent, as well as a media-savvy clinical psychologist, bridging the gap between warring generations is her speciality, as any viewer of the BBC’s House of Tiny Tearaways will know. “Parents feel fear, and maybe I can talk to them in a way they trust,” she says.

And her calm, measured approach has a soothing effect; I arrived determined that my toddlers would never touch a video game, and left wondering if we should get a PlayStation.

Headlines about the effects of computer games are almost always negative, but Byron believes in what she calls a “balanced media diet”. “Let children play their video games, but then have a meal as a family, read a book, maybe go out for a walk together,” she advises.

She feels there are plenty of positives about video games as long as they are age-appropriate. “Play is very important and this is one form that children are very engaged with,” she says. “People have this idea that all video games are violent, but 50 per cent of the market is aimed at under-12s. These are brain-training, nurturing pet games, quiz games and role-playing games that rely on your imagination. Children with learning difficulties have learnt to spell or count through their console.”

Yes, but surely it must be better for a child to be playing outside? Byron grins. “When I started, my son said to me, you promise you won’t ban video games, Mum, because my friends will hate me forever’. And the day I started it, he fell out of a tree and broke his arm…”

She has recommended that the Government conducts research into the educational value of such games - “you can engage children’s imagination through this technology, so why not think creatively about how to educate them in ways they don’t engage with traditionally?” And, she says, playing video games can actually bring a family closer.

At home, Byron often sits over the role-play computer game The Sims with her 12-year-old daughter, Lily - “I have fascinating conversations with her about relationships when we are playing these games.” Moreover, she feels they can be an excellent way to bring marginalised fathers into the parenting front line. “Fathers do tend to get involved in the technological side and they’re more likely to be involved in setting up computer games,” she says. “My husband loves gaming and does it a lot with my son.”

And as a couple, the Byrons are partial to sociable games on the family Nintendo Wii. “We had friends round for dinner and we played mixed doubles, and I ended up punching my husband in the stomach by accident,” she recalls.

You sense that she is relieved that her six-month stint is over; once she has reported to a select committee, she plans to head off to a Center Parcs - “somewhere that my mobile doesn’t work”.

She put a lot of work into the report. “Somebody who works in Government said the other day you’ve changed the way reviews are done forever’,” she says with pride.

“It’s not going to be a 60-year-old judge who doesn’t talk to anyone and sits down to write an academic review. I think if you’re going to do a job, you do it properly, and if you are doing it about kids, you talk to kids.” She approached schools for advice and appeared on Newsround. More than 350 children, some as young as 5, responded to her call for evidence - “more than industry, charities, everyone else put together. What a lot of the kids are saying is, we know more about this than our parents, so we don’t have anywhere to go to ask for advice’. And some kids are saying, because my parents don’t know about this, they panic and stop me doing anything’.”

She also conducted 100 meetings with agencies, including police, children’s charities and the industry, flew to the US to consult internet providers, listened in on focus groups and held a conference.

Consensus is what she’s after. “What worked best when I was in child protection was not when someone came up with a fabulous new idea but when everyone worked together and respected each other’s point of view,” she says.

So how best to protect children online? “It’s not like watching television,” she says, “that’s a regulated space. The internet is more like going out to play. It’s amazing the experiences they can access, but more opportunity means more risk.”

Her recommendations include keeping the computer in a family room, using a timer and laying down rules about the sites children may access. She says: “It’s all common-sense. Just as you teach a child how to cross the road by holding his hand to begin with and then watching him do it on his own, you need to do the same online.” The idea is to teach children how to negotiate it safely, and put safeguards, such as content filters and timers, in place.

Good communication between parent and child, as always, is vital. With her own children, Byron adopts varying approaches. “I know my daughter will come to me if there are issues and, anyway, her internet use is more based around instant messaging. But we’re much more prescriptive with my son about the amount of time he can go on, when, and he knows I can check on his internet history to see the sites he’s been viewing. Now, I can be competent and confident about helping my kids. If managed well, the internet can be a really positive experience for a developing child. There are great benefits and opportunities; but parents should monitor it.”

Hers is a rare voice of reason in the debate between those who would like the internet closed down and those who view controls as censorship.

For Byron, both attitudes are naive. “The first isn’t realistic - the genie’s out of the bottle and there are really good things about the internet. And the second isn’t good enough when it comes to child safety. That is at the heart of a developed society for me.”

Source: Times Online, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article3633427.ece

In 2007, the British Prime Minister commissioned an independent review of how parents and children are being affected by the rise of new technology, such as increased access to the Internet and gaming consoles. Dr. Tanya Byron, a psychologist with experience in child behavior, led the review, and spent several months exploring the research literature and meeting with parents, children, and industry leaders. The results of the work have now been released in a report that makes comprehensive recommendations regarding the role the government can play in helping parents make technology a safe and effective part of their child’s development.

In places, the report is remarkably blunt in its analysis. Dr. Byron argues that unsupervised exploration and the pushing of boundaries are a natural and essential part of childhood. In her view, UK society has become increasingly risk-averse, which has resulted in parents that let kids explore the outdoors only through carefully supervised and structured activities. Left with few boundaries to push, children are turning to games and the Internet as the only locations they can undergo this form of development.

Byron suggests that parents should treat technology as they do more traditional areas of childhood development, and makes two informative comparisons: crossing the street and learning to swim. Each of these is associated with risks, but parents manage them in stages, with education, followed by supervised exploration that ultimately leads to allowing children to explore largely unsupervised. Technology largely presents a problem because it lacks the intuitive and widely understood aspects of education and risk. “There is a generational digital divide which means that parents do not necessarily feel equipped to help their children in this space,” Byron writes, “which can lead to fear and a sense of helplessness.”

The report contains extensive recommendations for eliminating the fear and helplessness aspects, divided between efforts targeted towards games and those focused on Internet use. In general, the recommendations focus on voluntary self-regulation by the relevant industries and educational programs that will help parents understand the challenges and benefits of the technology.

In terms of Internet use, Dr. Byron recommends pervasive access to parental control software. Retailers should provide this at the point of purchase, and ISPs should include the software as part of their service. Search companies should agree to provide a “safe search” option that’s easily accessed from the main search portal, and can be locked in on a given machine. Content providers should also agree to strict takedown times for potentially harmful content. All of these efforts would be coordinated by a governmental council that works with the relevant industry groups. Byron avoids recommending any new laws, but suggests that the council be charged with evaluating existing laws to determine how they could be modernized or clarified to cope with technological advances.

The existing research on gaming and childhood development, in Byron’s view, mostly indicates that factors beyond gaming content can be critical: “there is a strong body of ethnographic research which argues that context and the characteristics of each child will mediate the effects of playing video games.” This, ultimately, means that parents should determine what gaming content is appropriate for their children. To make parents’ job easier, the report calls for improvements in the existing game ratings system, along with improved enforcement of age limits.

Overall, the recommendations are refreshingly short on fear-mongering, and the report recognizes a number of things that many people seem reluctant to admit: each child is a unique, so one-size-fits-all rules are ineffective; parents need to educate themselves so that they can set intelligent limits; and risk can never be eliminated, so their role should include developing their child’s resilience. Given these realities, its recommendations appear to appropriately focus on how the government and industry can work to make a parent’s job easier.

Source: Ars Technica, MA
http://tinyurl.com/249xmq