movies Tag

Posts tagged 'movies'

Do Parents Let Their Kids Play Violent Video Games?

Recently, I received a question from a mother who said her teenage kids wanted to watch violent video games and they claimed other parents allowed their kids to do so. They thought she was just being mean and ignorant of what was happening in the world. “I do not like the idea of them playing violent and sexist video games but I feel helpless”. Her idea was to design a questionnaire for parents and see if her teenagers were right. She asked me what I think of her idea. Here is what I wrote to her:

Your experience is quite normal and it is wonderful to read that there are people like you still out there, advocating for children to be engaging in healthy activities!

Feel free to set the rules in your house. Your teen is a teen. He does not set the rules. You do! He is welcome to make different rules in his house!

You don’t need a questionnaire to back up what you already know is right. You can be the captain of your own family ship, regardless of what other parents do.

Kids cannot buy their own games, computers, iPhones, etc. You have a lot more power than you think! I have clients who found amazing result when they put their kids on a technology diet for a week. Their kids were suddenly like new! If they can’t use your credit card and don’t know your PayPal password, you have nothing to worry about.

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Social Media Reality: Look Up! What Are You Missing?

Technology and social media have become a significant part of our life. Recently, I learned some valuable lessons about just how they affect us and the opportunities they make us miss.

My 13-year-old daughter, Noff, is the youngest in our family. Lately, she has been struggling with not having a mobile phone to take to school. To her, mobile phones are very cool. Some kids need them to coordinate pick-up times or for safety on the bus.

Unfortunately for her, she does not need it for any of those things. She so much wants to be part of the mobile phone in-crowd that she uses our old phones to play games. She struggles with not being like everyone else and I struggle with my parenting.

I have some beliefs and rules about social media and I know I need to adjust them to suit the times. I have three kids and I cannot apply the same parenting rules regarding media with Noff that I did with my first two.

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Anorexia: Fix the Broken Body Image Created by the Media

Media is one of the major contributors to the damaged body images we have in our society. Once, it was only girls, but now we have more and more boys suffering from low body image.

Movies and magazines show celebrities who look tall and slim, with smooth skin at every pose. It is no wonder people spend money on products to try to “fix” themselves. What they do not know is that the photos they see are heavily photo-shopped and that the person they see in the magazine never looked like that.

It seems fitting that we should use the media to fix the damage done by the media. That way, our daughters and sons can see it. Yes, the photo-shopped images are beautiful, but they are not normal.

This post is part 8 of 8 in the series Anorexia

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My Anti -TV campaign

As an advocate of emotional intelligence, I object to kids watching TV. Everything I try to give them, the TV is destroying. I think bringing a TV home is like bringing the opposition into your living room, to tell your kids that you, the parent is wrong. Why would you do that?

When Eden was young and we were a young couple, we did not have a TV at home. My grandmother, who wanted to buy a new TV, suggested we take hers and we refused. We worked and when we were home, there were better things to do with our time than watch TV. Some family members and friends thought we were nuts and that we were not preparing our daughter to live in the real world. 24 years later, I can tell you, she is prepared for the real world, maybe even better than many other kids her age.

A month ago, Brisbane experienced a huge storm and trees were up rooted not far from us (it was really scary). Many houses experienced major damage and were without electricity for days (Many difficulties pop up when you do not have electricity for 3 days. We depend on electricity so much). We were the lucky ones. The only thing that happened to us was that our 20 year old 25 inch TV shorted (even though it had a surge protector). Tsoof and Gal were very happy because they have been wanting to buy a new TV for a year. Eden and I were not very happy. We ended up buying a huge TV with the promise to only watch videos and minimize watching TV.

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Make a list: Inspiring Movies

I really love movies. I remember the first movie I ever watched on the big screen at the age of 11. My dad used to have a second job selling movie tickets in the small town we lived in. He could never let us in for free but he would make cones out of newspaper and give us free popcorn.

Movies have always been a source of inspiration for me. As an author, I see the stories I write unfold like movies in my head. I think an author is kind of like a director, only an author has to do all the aspects of production in their head.

I get a lot of inspiration for my writing from the people in my life. Lucky for me, my profession allows me to meet lots of them, which means I can mix and shuffle their stories to create new situations, scenarios, and outcome for my books. This is something I can do entirely in my head, and when everything is arranged just right, I write down on paper the story I saw in my mind.

People are also a great inspiration to me for how I want to live my life. I have made a point to learn something by observing the lives of the people around me. Each of them has something to share.

This post is part 36 of 49 in the series Make a List

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