Dangerous, but unavoidable: social media
Media education and media literacy is a topic that keeps us busy - and will continue to do so. Digital media is playing an increasingly important role in our children's everyday lives. It is therefore becoming increasingly important that we adults stay up-to-date and keep thinking about what we need to do to support our children.
The focus this time: How should we parents behave and support our children when they get access to social media or their own smartphone?
Although it is moving further and further forward, we paediatricians continue to advise that this should not happen before the end of primary school.
Children and young people are more or less automatically exposed to critical or harmful content as soon as they have their own smartphone or access to digital and social media. There is virtually nothing we can do to change this.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, there will be more and more fake content, and we can't really protect our children from that either.
What we can do: Signal early and repeatedly that we are there for them. That they can and should come to us - even and especially if something stupid has happened, perhaps they have fallen for someone in a chat.
We also want and need to talk about content. We are particularly concerned about the increasing spread of right-wing extremist content on TikTok. We parents need to keep talking to our children about what content they come across and how it should be categorised.
The top priority is: openness, no accusations, no fear of talking about certain things. We need to signal to children and young people that we are interested in this world and also engage with it ourselves - and not simply condemn it.
Further interesting tips
It all depends on the wings
The Doc is a big fan of Herbert Renz-Polster - a paediatrician colleague and well-known author. The Doc is always happy to receive books from him! This time too, although he has one small criticism ..
Home pharmacy
Today we are looking at a topic that has often been asked about: the medicine cabinet. However, the question is whether I am the right person to talk to.
Lies
Tears don't lie - at least that's what Michael Holm claims in his famous hit song. Children, on the other hand, do lie. Sometimes even like printed matter. This often causes parents a lot of stress, which is why we are taking a closer look at this topic. And also because it's honestly a topic where we parents always have to look at how big our own part in it is.