Just in time for this year’s Mother’s Day my kids and I finished up Beverly Cleary’s Ramona and her Father and have started in on Ramona and Her Mother. We’ve only finished chapter one of Ramona and Her Mother but we can’t wait to hear all of Ramona’s newest escapades.
Our house loves the Ramona series and there are so many lessons for both by five year old and six year old to take away and apply to their own lives, even though the eight-book series was written over a 44 year period from 1955 to 1999. There are stories of first crushes, parents out of work, big and little sister rivalry and camaraderie, and insights into the nature of fragile, yet devoted, family dynamics. And, of course Cleary’s stories bring me straight back to being a kid myself as she presents the pure point of view of Ramona as she struggles to feel heard and wants to believe others deem what she has to say is important, no matter whether its Miss Binney her Kindergarten teacher taking her seriously in the classroom or with her dad as Ramona tries to convince him to quit smoking.
And really, what’s changed about kids wanting to feel heard and that their opinions and contributions matter?
First off, this post was spawned from another post by a colleague of mine over at Laptop TV Mom. So first, go over and read her post so you can jump in feet first here. Done? Ok, so…
We’ve just started letting my daughter watch Hannah Montana and the likes of iCarly. Her first three episodes were spent alongside mom (me) providing the “moral compass commentary” along with the show. For example, the sister is routinely making fun of the brother (I’ve even noticed this on Olivia and it bugs me!) and the brother is sadly dumbed down (what a shame to teach to young boys watching with their sisters). We have a brother and sister combo in our house too and there’s no way we’d let our daughter treat our son that way and we made sure she knew it.
In order to curb behavioral influences on the kids by these shows, what I found incredibly helpful to do at a young age, even during the Dora years, was to educate a lot — even slightly “over their heads” around TV, because it tuns out it’s very much *not* over their heads. An example? Calling out commercials so they understood the difference between their shows and commercials and what certain wording means, like “as much as” or “simulated flying action” so that the kids understood that not everything is exactly as TV shows it to be.
Fast forward two years or so and it’s moved to the point where the kids understand that these are just characters on a show with a script and that there are real people with real names and real families playing these roles. They seem to get that it’s “make believe” actions that way and so far it’s been working to curb real-life influence. This proved invaluable in the Star Wars series, when Darth Vader can seem very scary if you didn’t know that’s simply James Earl Jones talking, the same nice fella from The Sandlot movie. And aside from making things not so scary for them, it also teaches them that the behavior is not “real life” behavior either. When we’re watching together, I like to ask “Do you think it’s ever okay to yell at your parents like that?” So far we’ve gotten the answers we’re looking for. I’ll let you know if that changes once we hit the teen years - ha.
However, on the reality side, my son idolizes certain individuals that are the real deal - like Shaun White and Tony Hawk. And to be honest, I don’t know what I’ll do if they ever slip up in the public eye in front of our son. Despite mom and dad teaching our son that everyone makes mistakes and that’s how we learn, I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that White and Hawk can keep it clean so we don’t have to test that out on his idols!
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