Who would you least want babysitting your kids - Homer Simpson of The Simpsons, Hank Hill of King of the Hill or Peter Griffin of Family Guy? Take the poll below or on our main website (you can sign up for our newsletter there too)! Then join the discussion by sharing your answers and your thoughts about this survey in the comment section below.

Who would you LEAST prefer to babysit your kids? Homer Simpson of "The Simpsons" Hank Hill of "King of the Hill" Peter Griffin of "Family Guy" View Results  Loading ...

Maybe the real answer isn’t these fictional characters but the “stars” of the NBC show Baby Borrowers.

According to NBC: “Baby Borrowers is a unique social experiment that takes five teenage couples on a rollercoaster ride of adult responsibility, allowing them to experience parenting firsthand. Desperate to have their own life and family, our lovebirds are thrown in at the deep end. They are given real houses and real responsibilities; the most important of which is to look after children from a range of age groups. They will begin with an infant, followed by a toddler, pre-teen, young teenager, and lastly a senior citizen. In the end, will these couples be able to cope with the pressure of parenthood or will they break?”

Tell us what you think!

 Make a rainbow with your child in your own home or backyard and learn how and why we see these colorful phenomena! For complete instructions, see Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus Simple Science experiment of the week. Also included is a simple explanation of what you’re observing and why. After you and your child do this experiment, together you can tell them what you discover (see “Send a discovery” at the bottom of the page).

If you and your 6-9 year olds aren’t familiar with The Magic School Bus, Ms. Frizzle, her class, and the wildly exciting adventures they have while engaging kids and educating them about science, find out more information, including when the show is aired on TLC and Discovery Kids, on the show’s website.

The STA’s Summer Tips are ideas for projects and activities inspired by your kids’ favorite shows, to help them learn while the TV is on and after it’s off. Look for more tips all summer long, to OutSmart the 150% Summer Spike in childrens’ television viewing.

See all Summer Tips
Sign Up for Smart News
Submit Your Own Tip

Depending on where you read about it, the new Federal Trade Commission report released earlier this week detailing that $1.6 billion is spent marketing food and bevs to children is either confusing or downright creepy.

A few incomplete highlights: Nearly $500 million is spent marketing soda to kids between the ages of 2 and 11. (Isn’t that one of the signs of the apocalypse? Or do locusts definitely have to be involved?) And just under $300 million is spent advertising fast food restaurants to kids in the same age range.

But the good news is, the American Beverage Association has asked its members companies to lay off, and a bunch of big corporations, via The Council of Better Business Bureaus, have also agreed to either advertise healthier products to kids or stop kid-oriented advertising altogether.

For more insight into the report, check out Lisa Guernsey’s post about it over at her blog, Media Minds. Guernsey’s the author of Into the Mind of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children from Birth to Age Five, and the thoughtful questions she raises will give you yet another reason to a) either buy a TiVo or DVR and use it religiously, or b) teach your kids like, right now, about media literacy.

Nickelodeon’s newest live-action series, True Jackson VP, sounds like a show your tween/teen will watch. and you’ll actually be cool with that.

Claiming to be indebted to both Big and The Devil Wears Prada, the show centers on 15-year-old True Jackson (Keke Palmer of that Starbucks flick, Akeelah and the Bee), a no-nonsense, fashion-forward teenager. When she’s selling sandwiches outside the offices of a major fashion label one day, the head of the company’s so intrigued by her “young yet marketable” fashion sense that he makes her VP of his youth apparel line faster than you can say Lauren Conrad. Needless to say, True learns to navigate nasty office politics with the help of her best high school buds, Lulu and Ryan.

Ten bucks says Lulu is kooky but insightful, and Ryan harbors a crush on True (which will be teased throughout the first twenty eps and play a part in the season finale.) But we’ll still tune in. We love that True will learn “corporate life has the same highs and lows of high school, complete with cliques, mean girls and crushes.” Because it so does.

We do hope the show’s writers go out of their way to avoid dialogue which too cutely incorporates the lead character’s name. Someone saying, “True dat!” every time a meanie gets their comeuppance would just be too obvious.

Look for True Jackson, VP to join the TEENick line-up this fall, along with iCarly.

Cook one of the kid-friendly recipes from Cooking for Kids with Luis. Together, you and your child can make fun, delicious, healthy food like fruit kebobs, empanadas, and Guatemalan cheesecake, which is great on so many levels. First of all… yum!! Secondly, your kids will learn cooking basics, they’ll become familiar with a variety of foods that are out there, and they’ll learn hands-on how raw ingredients become tasty, healthy food – putting a kibosh on any delusions that dinner comes from an unknown source somewhere in or near the kitchen. Find out more about Cooking for Kids with Luis here.

The STA’s Summer Tips are ideas for projects and activities inspired by your kids’ favorite shows, to help them learn while the TV is on and after it’s off. Look for more tips all summer long, to OutSmart the 150% Summer Spike in childrens’ television viewing.

See all Summer Tips
Sign Up for Smart News
Submit Your Own Tip

That was a commercial, right? I asked myself as I passed my tweens and their grandfather watching what appeared to be “Antiques Roadshow” on TV.

“Have you ever seen ‘Antiques Roadshow’?” my father-in-law asked me after I stopped in my tracks to determine whether my sons, Nicholas, 11, and Christopher, 9, were really watching a television program dedicated to assessing the value of such items as vintage purses and antique clocks.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied reluctantly, staring at the TV in our vacation rental house. My tweens shushed me. After all, the Civil War belt buckle was up next.

Thanks to their grandparents, my boys watch TV shows that aren’t exactly the usual Disney-esque fare for tweens. How many children do you think are watching “Jeopardy” or “Wheel of Fortune”? Judging by the commercials for Polident, not many. And that’s exactly why I love it.

My in-laws have created the return of the TV Family Hour by introducing my kids to thoughtful programming that appeals to grown-ups and kids alike. Maybe that’s why these shows have been on the air since I was a tween. They’re fun for the whole family. I mean, really: Who doesn’t want to find out that the toy robot from the 1960’s is worth nearly two grand?

In a few weeks, my children are going to visit their grandparents for a few days. I hope they get a chance to catch up on their favorite loved-by-septuagenarians shows. If nothing else, they keep me from getting old worrying about what my kids are watching on TV.

– Posted by Jen Singer

Photo Credit: NASA Johnson Space Center

As NASA turns 50 today, I can’t help but be reminded of a seminal moment of my childhood: the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster—73 seconds into its flight—killing all seven of its crew members. For my generation, many of NASA’s massive accomplishments appeared only in history books. Kids across America witnessed something going horribly wrong and people dying.

The date was January 28, 1986 and I was huddled in the media room of my school’s library. We were anxiously watching the first teacher head into orbit. Christa McAuliffe is a name that I will never forget.

Today, I still think back to how our teachers responded. They didn’t turn off the TV set. They let us watch the events unfold, interviews with experts, the press conferences, the reaction of those who were there to see it first hand. The teachers talked with us about what had happened and asked us how it made us feel.

It is a reminder of how powerful a medium television remains and how even in a disaster, kids and adults alike can learn and grow.

- Christopher Turman, Smart Television Alliance

It’s easy to see why kids find the popular Disney Channel show Phineas and Ferb so comically entertaining. The characters’ antics and adventures are over-the-top, to put it mildly, but don’t let that keep you or your kids away. This show makes for a half hour of harmless fun on Saturday mornings. The same can be said for the free games on the Phineas and Ferb website, which your kids will surely enjoy. For example, check out Agent P’s Hideout Spy Simulation, which is just as exciting and silly as it sounds.

The STA’s Summer Tips are ideas for projects and activities inspired by your kids’ favorite shows, to help them learn while the TV is on and after it’s off. Look for more tips all summer long, to OutSmart the 150% Summer Spike in childrens’ television viewing.

See all Summer Tips
Sign Up for Smart News
Submit Your Own Tip

No one can accuse Dade Hayes of being a slacker. The dad of two young kids and the assistant managing editor of Variety, he’s also just penned a compulsively readable book, Anytime Playdate: Inside the Preschool Entertainment Boom, or How Television Became My Baby’s Best Friend. Some of our fave parts: Learning that Dora (yes, that Dora) was first an Irish redhead named Nina, and a raccoon before that. Why you’ll never see a “Baby Goodall” on the shelf next to all those Baby Einsteins. And the revelation of just how insidious TV merchandising is.

Check out our interview with Dade after the jump. You’ll finally understand why kids adore Barney, even though he makes your skin crawl.

Read the rest of this entry »

WordWorld is a fantastic PBSKIDS program that engages preschoolers with entertaining plotlines and adventurous, legible characters that cultivate early readers by emphasizing “connections between letters, sounds, words and meaning.” On top of that, the WordWorld website is chock full of suggestions for helping kids get the most out of the show. There’s an extensive list of viewing tips, like playing “I Spy” – “who can spot the words in each segment?” – while watching WordWorld, and more than a dozen activity ideas, like Rhyme Ball and Two Words Become One. (Ok, so they focused their creative juices on the show itself and not the names of the activities… Is that so terrible?)

If you and your 3-6 year old(s) aren’t watching WordWorld yet, we highly recommend you check it out. Find out when WordWorld is on the PBS station in your area.

The STA’s Summer Tips are ideas for projects and activities inspired by your kids’ favorite shows, to help them learn while the TV is on and after it’s off. Look for more tips all summer long, to OutSmart the 150% Summer Spike in childrens’ television viewing.

See all Summer Tips
Sign Up for Smart News
Submit Your Own Tip