Have you ever noticed when a car honks or a whistle blows, everyone around turns to stare?  It’s like we’re hard wired to stop, stare and pay attention.  Well I think that’s what the media’s like in our lives — we’re going about our daily stuff and then “Wwwhheeewww” goes that whistle, and the media is alerting us to a missing child, or a plane crash, or a murder, or a kid getting poison halloween candy.  Or so often it’s a reality show with all this name calling and bad behavior, pitting us against each other.

This wasn’t such a big deal when we only watched an hour or so of TV a day, we could keep it in perspective.  But now, the average screen time for our nation’s kids is 44.5 hours a week — the problem now is that all that horn blowing starts to feel like it IS our lives.

Our attention has shifted from the things we should really be focusing on, that over the long haul will make us healthy and well adjusted: balance, eating healthy, playing a little video game but not all the time, checking facebook once or twice a day, but not spending hours when I should be doing homework.  Over-the-top media use doesn’t seem like a real problem, not compared to murder, for goodness sakes!  If my child eeks through another Halloween not succumbing to poison candy, I can feel like a good Mom.  Whew.

This is why it’s so hard to be a good parent in the 21st Century.  No one is talking about what it really takes, hard work, patience, discipline — boring.  Can’t blow a whistle and stay up in the ratings for something like that.

But the National Institute on Media and the Family is blowing the whistle for some of these kind of strong parenting moments that we should pay attention to.  Hundereds of parents are turning out to learn more.  We’re going to share these stories with you, stay tuned.

And if you’re still not convinced about the real threats to our children, read this report from the Pediatric Journal (if you haven’t already) — the violence and madness that most of our kids experience isn’t even in the real world, it’s on the flickering screen right in the center of our homes.  And we can do something about that.  Let’s do.  I just blew the whistle.

On Wednesday I’m going to share a story about a mom whose whole outlook on parenting changed in one weekend after a Say Yes to No workshop.  You don’t want to miss that.

And I’d love it if you’d share some of the parenting issues you’re facing.  What’s driving you crazy?  What’s working?  What’s the whistle that really gets your attention?

Author, Jenny Buck, Development Director of the National Institute on Media and the Family and mother of 2 teen sons.