Guest post by Dana Sirotiak

As children grow up in a digital society, their exposure to information is endless.  Whether it is information for a research report for school or connecting with their peers through social media.  How does social media influence the identity of our children and how can parents guide their child to use it appropriately? Gloria DeGartano, author of Parenting Well in a Media Age, found that there are six specific challenges of modern-day parenting that raise six important questions:

•   Whose messages do we want to be most influential in shaping the emerging identity of our children—the messages from an industry-generated culture or the messages from parents?

•   How do we help our children intentionally choose what is in their best interests when the corporate-controlled culture and social institutions in our communities persist in urging them to make choices not in their best interests?

•   How do we nurture our children’s and teens’ healthy autonomy within an industry-generated culture determined to undermine our authority and responsibility?

•   How do we parents get the relevant information we need to parent well when that information is not easily available through common mass media channels?

•   How can we stop the escalation of sensational, mindless content by the industry-generated culture if human brains are easily conditioned to seek it?

•   How can parents meet their children’s real human needs and their own human needs in a larger culture that avoids recognition of those needs?

Join us this Wednesday on #PTchat at 9pm EST/PST where we will be joined by special guest Gloria DeGartano @SpeakerGloria as we discuss Parenting Well in a Media Age.