Healthy Media Choices Hour Podcasts

Lillian Firestone, author of The Forgotten Language of Children

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:07:15 -0400

The work with children, based on the ideas of G. I. Gurdjieff, described in this book is both spiritual and practical. Firestone says: “Our challenge was to bring children a spiritual experience of life without indoctrinating them into a particular teaching.” There is sustenance here for those who wish to have a mutually respectful relationship with children, open to actively learning together with them.
Excerpt
Lillian Firestone: “It’s really extraordinary. If you give children respect, if you speak to them straight, how much they can understand. They understand as much as we do. What it requires on our part is the sense that we are talking to intelligent beings. We’re not talking to little, dumb people. We’re talking to sentient beings who are smaller in size than we are, but who are also struggling to discover the meaning of their lives.”
Link to full transcipt

Mary Catherine Bateson, Anthopologist, author of Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom

Sun, 3 Jul 2011 20:10:25 -0400

It would be hard to overestimate the importance of Mary Catherine Bateson’s work. Her latest book Composing a Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom may sound like it would be of interest mainly to those of us over 60, and it is of vital importance to those who want to come to grips with how to approach the healthy years when their children are grown and they may have more time to reflect and redirect their energies. However, its implications and usefulness are far broader. There are many questions that are relevant for our focus on children from birth to age 8, some of which are touched on here.
What will the child’s view of her own life’s potential be when she sees her grandparents and great-grandparents living fulfilling lives? What stereotypes need to be re-examined in light of Adulthood II, the phase of relative health that has been added after the childbearing years and before “old age” sets in?
Also, given the greater mobility and increased potential for pursuing individual interests in years after 60, what changes can be expected in the role of the grandparent as that special person, authority yet not in the truly parental sense, the keeper of family lore, the patient playmate of the youngest children/
In workshops, parents often point to Skype as a blessing for keeping generations connected, and it is. What other ways are there to be intentional about making sure that there is a sense of continuity and family culture that can play such a pivotal role in children’s resiliency?

Some references from this conversation”
Generations United
http://www.gu.org
The workshop at the Open Center in NY was with Legacy of Wisdom Progject
http://legacyofwisdom.org
A short video of Dr. Bateson speaking about Mission as part of Legacy of Wisdom Project
http://fwd4.me/05at
The Amos Fortune Forum http://www.amosfortune.com/fulldescriptions.html
Feel free to contact me at mary(at)healthymediachoices.org
(c) Healthy Media Choices 2011

Richard Lewis, author and founder of the Touchstone Center: Seeing Children

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:58:59 -0400

This conversation is also posted at Witness for Childhood, www.witnessforchildhood.org, the sister site of Healthy Media Choices, bringing the conversation about media in the context of children’s development to faith and humanist communities.

Richard Lewis has the ability to bring children into an sphere of supported attention where they can, as he says, “reverse the telescope” and look within as well as without.” Isn’t that the fundamental human action that allows us to grow and tap into our thoughts, feelings, and sensations?

Here and at Witness for Childhood, we work at facilitating the important conversation about navigating life in a media age within homes and communities. Lewis offers us the simple and always replenish-able tool: our attention.

(c) Healthy Media Choices 2011

Peggy Orenstein, Author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:16:01 -0500

Peggy Orenstein, author of several books, including Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap. She is widely published in magazines an is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. In musing on her own questions as the mother of Daisy, who is now seven years old, Orenstein holds up a mirror in which all parents of girls can see their reflection. She thus opens questions about and exposes some of the infrastructure of the commercial culture in a uniquely accessible way.

Two essential elements that Orenstein brings to light: segregation of young children according to narrow definitions of gender as a public health issue and research (by Joan Jacobs Blumberg) about the difference between the resolutions of girls at the end of he 19th century in contrast to those of girls at the end of the 20th. We go on to talk about the narrative that young children are hearing from popular media, the way it is forming them in essential ways and that we have alternatives at our fingertips in the stories from our own families and cultural backgrounds.

I agree somewhat with the Salon review: this book is somewhat frustrating for what it leaves out. My recommendation would be to read this in conjunction with So Sexy, So Soon by Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne (my interview with Jean Kilbourne is HERE) and Packaging Girlhood by Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown. Both of those books provide more in-depth research and go to the next step: practical suggestions for steps that parents can take.

Peggy’s website is www.peggyorenstein.com Here is a link to the New York Times book review: http://is.gd/mTnYjx

Links to some of the organizations mentioned:
Sanford Harmony Program http://sanford.clas.asu.edu/
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood: www.commercialfreechildhood.org
Hardy Girls Healthy Women: www.hardygirlshealthywomen.org
Also: New Moon Girls www.newmoon.com

(c) Healthy Media Choices 2011

Professor Lance Strate, Executive Director of The Institute of General Semantics

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 09:56:46 -0400

Lance Strate is a Professor of Media and Communications Studies at Fordham University and a founder and past president of the Media Ecology Association. He has written numerous books and articles and embodies a meld of academic and practical search for meaning and understanding.

We talked about the practical applications, especially for parents and teachers of young children, of some of the principles of General Semantics.

This conversation will also be posted on the website for Witness for Childhood at www.witnessforchildhood.org

Relevant links:
Institute of General Semantics: www.generalsemantics.org
Media Ecology Association: www.media-ecology.org
Lance Strate’s links:

http://lancestrate.blogspot.com
http://faculty.fordham.edu/strate
http://blogs.myspace.com/lancestrate