Customer Reviews

The War Play Dilemma: What Every Parent And Teacher Needs to Know (Early Childhood Education Series (Teachers College Pr)) (Early Childhood Education (Teacher's College Pr))

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Carlsson-Paige and Levin give seasoned and accessible help to parents who are trying to determine if the behavior they are seeing warrants concern or not. They help us see the difference between developmentally appropriate conflict/ weapon play and the truly worrying obsesion that "entertaiment" media has blown it up to be.

This is a fantastic book that every US parent should read. It helps parents come up with a balanced approach to a big problem in the USA -- created, the authors suggest, by media deregulation during the Reagan Administration leading to an unholy alliance of children's media producers and toy producers, who sell macho agression to boys and sexualized behavior to girls. This tends to lock children into stereotyped roles through continuous bombardment of a narrow set of messages interlocked with a set of toys with only one obvious way to use them. Beyond encouraging aggression, children's creativity is hurt as well. Especially useful is the long list of suggestions (including things to say) towards the end of the book. It's OK to be angry or scared; it's what we do with our feelings that matter. We have bought extra copies of this book to give away to other families. One of the authors has a book about the girl side of this media problem: So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids