An important area of the advisory process is helping parents make good decisions with (and for) their children.
ALD places the responsibility of parental supervision on the parent, stating "It is not the library's policy to decide what ideas your child should be exposed to; therefore, we hope you will continue to participate in the learning process by helping your child select materials and by sharing them at home." This means that all our patrons have access to any book, movie or music in our collection and we ask that the parent is involved to make sure the material is appropriate for their child.
Which brings me to this weeks Thirsty Thursday resource: Common Sense Media - www.commonsensemedia.org - providing what I'd call "Parental Advisory".
It's a site dedicated helping parents make good decisions regarding media. The CSM staff reviews movies (in theaters & on DVD), TV shows, music, video games, websites and books. They give a review of the title and provide parents some discussion points when talking with their kids. They "rate" the Content (Sex, Violence & Language) as well as the social message that is given. The ratings aren't good or bad, just if they are appropriate for the recommended minimum age for the item.
The site also provides the opportunity for both adults & kids to rate the "age appropriateness" so you aren't limited to the opinions of the staff reviewer. They do want you to register (it's free) via a pop-up, but you can decline the invitation if you want to avoid the weekly email. I'd suggest clicking on the "More Rating Info"
in the left column to get more info on how the thing works.
There are other parental advisory sites out there, but this one (once you figure out how it works) is probably the most comprehensive.
So the next time someone wants to know why a movie is rated what it's rated, or whether that PG13 movie is appropriate for their 6 year old ("they are really advanced for their age"), or are just looking for good advice on making good media decisions with their kids, you've got a site to recommend.
Cheers! (seemed like the thing to say on a Thirsty Thursday)
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5 comments:
I liked the layout of the website and how they rated the movies. However, I noticed that some of the ratings said "not worth your time." What may not be worth one person's time, might be worth the time of another, so I didn't like how that part was set up. Otherwise, I would say it's a decent place that parents can use to get general info on a movie.
I liked the website, bowever that sort of thing can lead elsewhere. I went from there to the NY public library website and found a book for my third grade neighbor who is Chinese and starting school in America. The book is here at CW and I never would have found it otherwise.
This site could be very useful, however, lots of titles are not listed that you might need. Did I miss something? What does the white button mean? I saw no code for that.
Sharon
Sharon, if you mean the white buttons that are shown in the content area (along with the red & yellow), I believe that white means that the reviewer had no concerns about that kind of content in the item reviewed.
I have always used kids-in-mind.com when patrons ask about movie content, so I compared that site with this one. Things I liked better with this one are the ratings for subjects other than sex, violence and language, the public's reviews, and the ability to get ratings on things other than movies. I still prefer kids-in-mind for it's thoroughness in describing each scene- it was quicker to read that going through all the public's comments to find what might be objectionable.
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