Bullying - what will make it stop?

We’re letting our kids down.  There’s no other way to put it. 

Our kids are growing up in a society that has changed irrevocably since today’s adults were young so that we (the grown ups) simply cannot recognise the depth of problems that today’s youth face.   Two girls' lives have ended as a result of cyberbullying http://tinyurl.com/8cq9f8v and the advice to parents in response is to talk to your kids about the on line space.  But what are they meant to say?  How can they formulate words for a world that many parents simply do not understand or visit themselves?

Parents are at the coalface of the difficulties today’s kids face but they are often ill equipped to either recognise or deal with said issues.  And this is a societal problem that needs to be addressed by society and not just parents alone.

Bullying be it on or off line, whilst initiated by 1 or 2 people is facilitated by others.  By-standers don’t just allow bullying to happen but actually expedite it.  Our kids need to grasp this.  And parents need to be supported in helping their children understand this.

I’ve said many times before our kids are (to a degree) digital literate but not life literate, and we the adults in society need to help them become life literate.  This starts at home for sure, but given that kids spent so much of their day in school, it must also continue there.

In the absence of a national media literacy programme, schools take an ad hoc approach to talking to students about the online and media environment in which they’re living.  This isn’t enough.  The changes and the importance and immersion of the media world in today’s kids’ lives far outweighs the attention this part of the education system gets.

A media literacy programme could talk to the students on two levels:  firstly it could talk about how the media works (which is important given the recent body image research).  And secondly, it could explore how students engage with the plethora of media available to them, what the explicit and also critically the implicit etiquettes and issues are regarding this usage, and what the repercussions are. 

School-based programmes can be extremely effective in imparting social messages.  But they need to be properly formulated and executed, to be teacher-friendly but also to include an element that extends the programme into the home.  By involving both influences – the school and the home – greater impact can be achieved.

There is no silver bullet to stop bullying, but taking collective responsibility and action is a start.

Food for thought – the draft children's commercial communications code

The food & drink industry’s in the media spotlight at the moment, for two reasons:  Firstly, it’s being referred to as the somewhat salvation of the Irish economy, it being a sector that is doing well despite the recession.  And secondly, the Broadcast Authority of Ireland (www.bai.ie) has just released a draft code that looks to restrict the advertising of ‘unhealthy’ food products to children.

There’s a lot to this code and to its history, so it’s worth looking into this at http://www.bai.ie/?p=2281 .  But for a summary version, and my own take on it, read on:-

The code is a draft, so it’s open to public consultation and by that I mean the general public as well as the industry and NGOs.  In essence it proposes to limit the advertising of food & drink products that are high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS), to 1 in 4 advertisements across the broadcasting day.  The proposal is specifically to ban these HFSS ads during kids’ programming up to 6pm, and possibly extending this to 9pm.  The code also wants to adopt the UK’s nutrient profiling system as a means to classify what products are HFSS, and this system will inevitably mean cheese will be categorized as HFSS.

A few quick reality checks on all of this:

Irish children do watch a lot of TV, but 2/3 of this is non-Irish TV that will not be affected by this code

1. The hours where TV is “most watched” is 6-9pm, followed closely by 9pm-midnight.  So a pre 6pm watershed will have little effect and even a 9pm watershed will only increase this a tad
2. The ban will be on ads during children’s programming, so the most viewed programmes watched by children ie X Factor, Coronation St etc., will not be included
3. As Irish children have a worryingly poor dairy intake, reducing the promotion of these products including cheese, will not necessarily be a good thing

All this makes me sound as though I see the code as pretty pointless, and on the face of these facts I would, EXCEPT that I do believe in the spirit of the code.  I do believe that we need to seriously look at and curtail our children’s exposure to advertising.  But I mean advertising in its broadest sense.  The ubiquity of marketing and advertising in Irish society means we must consider more than just television. 

Food & drink marketing is omni present in Irish society:-

In the supermarkets manufacturers use favourite kids characters like Bart Simpson and teletubbies to sell beans and yoghurts. 

• Online websites for example www.Fanta.ie is clearly aimed at a young audience, and encourage children to download, despite downloading being an online activity kids should be discouraged from doing.  (The site also carries limited product information which highlights a ‘healthy’ message - 4% juice which is in fact less than a 5ml teaspoon for 100ml bottle!) 
• Marketing has also entered the school gates with token collection schemes and even as recently reported in the Sunday Times, incentive schemes for teachers to sell popcorn. 
• Along with using popular characters and celebrity endorsement, toys are also used to lure our children into buying the associated products.
• And brand extensions now even include an crisp-themed outdoor theme park. 

So if restricting television advertising is a first step towards encouraging brands review their full marketing activities, then this code serves a good purpose.   Because as I have found in my 8 years of writing, researching  and debating this topic, we have a fundamental obstacle to address first – industry’s mindset. 

Industry must genuinely embrace its responsibilities, acknowledge the vulnerability of children, and behave ethically ie where a company does make unhealthy products , it must not however implicitly promote them as being in any way healthy, and more importantly it must not overly promote them to encourage consumption beyond a ‘treat’.

However, if this revised code is instead, a mere stand alone box-ticking exercise, then I return to my long professed preference for industry and politicians to help empower and educate both children and parents regarding marketing and nutrition.  Because an empowered consumer can make informed choices. 

And empowerment will only come from engagement.  This is what the Positive Childhood Campaign is all about.  Giving parents a voice and an opportunity to discuss the issues regarding our children.  And reminding industry, the media, politicans and all citizens, of our moral duty to ensure Irish childhood is as positive as possible. 

Letting Kids Be Kids - Why do We Need the Positive Childhood Campaign?

The Positive Childhood Campaign is a parents-led initiative to raise awareness of the need for all Irish adult citizens to play their part in ensuring Irish childhood is as positive as possible.

Why do we need to do this?  Because modern day childhood, whilst having many great aspects in comparison to previous generations, also has some negative elements that need to be redressed, for example:-

1. Our children are growing up in a society that is highly consumerist and material, and in an environment that is media saturated so that they are frequently exposed to adult content and sexualised imagery. 
2. The many benefits of the technology explosion we and our children enjoy, are juxtaposed with disbenefits regarding safety and unregulated marketing. 
3. And the attraction and ubiquity of technology is a contributing factor - admitedly amongst others such as parents' fears and the lowest PE hours in Europe - to children's increasingly sedentary lifestyle.

Of course parents are the primary carers and need to manage their chidlren's childhood experiences.  But parents cannot address these issues on their own.  It is important that we all take collective responsibilty and firstly acknowledge that we have a moral and civic duty to the nation's chidlren, and secondly act accordingly.  So the Campaign is calling on:-

• industry to be clear about the appropriateness of the marketing and of the products either sold to or consumed by children, and where children aren't the end user or purchaser, businesses still need to be mindful of children's potential exposure to these products and their advertising;
• educators to ensure not just the academic but also the modern day lifeskills such as healthy lifestyles, media literacy, and on-line safety, are taught in schools;
• politicans to work together across departments and not just in silos to find pragmatic and workable solutions to these issues;
• and the media to keep this on the agenda and ensure parents' and childrens' views are represented.

And Parents then need to make their voice heard and raise the debate.  To date when the likes of childhood obesity or cyber-safety is discussed, there tends to be a dearth of parents' perspective and the Positive Childhood Campaign is about giving parents the channel to have the discussion, and present their viewpoint.  With partners such as Barnardos, FAI, NCTE, on board to offer resources such as advice, information and research, the more people and organisations that get involved the better.

Because we all have a role to play in making Irish childhood as positive an experience as our children deserve. 

Check it out - thousands have already....
http://www.mykidstime.ie/d/positive-childhood