POP! Parents of Preschoolers: Screen Time

I've been writing a bit about the revamped caregiver engagement programming that we've been offering at my library. It's called POP! Parents of Preschoolers, and it's a bimonthly program for parents of young children to a) grow their support network with other parents of young children, b) build new skills and confidence in parenting topics, and c) see the library as a place that supports their role as parents.

In November, I facilitated a POP! program on the topic of Screen Time--specifically new media (like tablets and smartphones), although we did talk about television, too. After a bit of social time in which the attending parents and I chatted about their kids, what the kids like to do, and questions about media, I shared some information from experts followed by some recommendations for screen time and their preschool-age children. We also ended the last fifteen minutes of the program with a hands-on exploration of some exemplary apps. Here's what we discussed.

Expert Recommendations

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, co-engagement counts when it comes to media use. That means using media along with your child, for example in the same ways that you would read a book together. Additionally, parents should be aware that screen-free playtime is important, too, and make time to engage in that type of open play.

According to Lisa Guernsey, author of Screen Time and Tap Click Read, parents should consider the 3 Cs when considering media use: Content, Context, and the Child. Content refers to the specific type of media and what it includes. Context refers to how, when, and why the media is being used--for example, because a child wants to look at pictures of zoo animals or because a child appears bored. The child refers to the parent's knowing their child and their needs best, and making media decisions with their child in mind.

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the Fred Rogers Center, the media use should be active, hands-on, engaging, and empowering.

When using media with a young child (age 2-5)...

Choose high-quality apps. This means avoiding distracting noises and actions, glitchy performance, and in-app purchases. A good rule of thumb for quality is whether you, the adult, can stand to use it with your child for five minutes or more.

Use media together. Children learn through interaction, so the process of reading, playing, and creating together allows them to learn new concepts, new words, and how media work.

Build relationships using media. Commemorate family outings, videochat long-distance relatives, and work together to strengthen bonds.

Don't be too hard on yourself. There are lots of messages out there about children and screen time. Remember that you know your child best, and that occasional screen time that isn't ideal isn't the end of the world.

Tips for Reading, Playing, and Creating Together with New Media

Ask questions when you read a digital story. For example, ask, "What do you think will happen next?"

Reread a favorite digital story together and tell it yourself.

Practice saying new words and learn their meanings while you read digital stories.

Explore new experiences using media, including ones you couldn't ordinarily have in your everyday life (like looking at pictures of desert animals if you live in a temperate area, etc.).

Videochat faraway friends.

Record your child telling a story or talking about a creation.

Make a photo show of pictures from a family outing.


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This program, at its core, is an example of media mentorship: it equips parents with expert information about young children and screen time, effectively allowing them to make the best possible decisions about screen time for their children and their family. I emphasized that every family and every child is different, so what screen time looks like at one house may not resemble what it looks like at another. And that's fine--what's important is that parents feel confident in making choices they feel are right for them and their families. And based on the post-program surveys, the parents who attended POP! Parents of Preschoolers: Screen Time did feel more confident in doing so following the program.

Incentivizing Caregiver Engagement Programs

I wrote recently about the revamped caregiver engagement programs here at my library, called POP! Parents of Preschoolers. This redesigned program is aimed at parents of children of a particular age--that is, ages 2 to 5--and it also has the goal of getting a core group of parents attending and engaged at multiple programs in the series. Getting repeat attendance can be a bit of a tough cookie, as I'm sure you've seen in some of your programs. Thus, when we were in the early planning stages for POP!, I had a bunch of conversations with colleagues in the youth department and marketing team to figure out ways to incentivize repeat participation. Here's what we're doing.

1. We're hosting all of the programs on the same day of the week and in the same 6:30-7:30 p.m. time slot. This scheduling consistency is to help caregivers to know ahead of time when, approximately, the programs will be happening. We still specify the date of each program, but this bit of consistency means interested parents know to keep Tuesday nights flexible, if not totally open.

2. We're letting attendees at one program preregister for the next program. That is, at the end of our October program, we offered to sign up attending parents for the November program on the spot. This strategy cuts down on chances parents might forget to register due to the million little distractions that pop up in life with little ones. And it's a bonus--we're signing up these parents before general registration is open. We normally don't allow advance registration, but since our priority is repeat attendance, we're making the exception for this program.

3. We're offering a simultaneous storytime for kids whose parents are attending POP! Evening childcare can be a huge hurdle for families with young children, and we're trying to help jump it by offering an extended storytime program, led by a librarian, in the youth program room (which is adjacent to the space in which the parents have their program). Tiny ones--kids under age 2--can stay with their caregivers in the POP! program, but anyone else is invited to join in storytime. They've been great programs so far.

4. We've created a takeaway--part parent information, part game--that parents can build from program to program. The takeaway is a branded card case with a set of cards for each program. The cards have two sides. The parent side has a tip or fact relevant to the program topic; for example, one tip from the Reading to Succeed program encourages using "grown-up" words with a child.

The kids' side of the cards have colored shapes, each with a thick black outline, two of each. When we hand out the new set of cards at each program, we emphasize to the parents that the shapes can be used in age-appropriate games: kids can match shapes, they can match colors, they can make patterns, they can count, they can trace the shapes, etc.

The POP! deck is a mobile preschool game with umpteen uses, and if parents use them they are also getting the tips and facts reinforced as they see them again and again. Parents have indicated that they like the cards and are excited about getting more at additional programs, so the incentive seems to be working. The deck concept is appealing for lots of staff, too, and I've got a few colleagues who are interested in adapting it for their own programs both in the library and off-site.

So there you have it: what we're doing to incentivize caregivers participating in our POP! Parents of Preschoolers program series. How do you incentivize repeat attendance?

POP! Parents of Preschoolers: A Caregiver Engagement Program

My library has a pretty strong history of parent engagement programs, and these programs have been directed at caregivers of children from newborns through high schoolers. And while we've offered a solid variety of these programs in the past, attendance has varied. In assessing the successes and shortcomings of our previous programs, my colleagues and I hypothesized that a possible culprit of the varying attendance could be the fact that, month to month, programs were geared toward parents of kids of different ages--that is, there wasn't necessarily a consistency in target audience. Cut to this year, when we wanted to be a bit more intentional about targeting a specific group of caregivers: specifically, those with children ages 2-5.

The resulting revamped program is a series we've called POP! Parents of Preschoolers. All programs (of which there will be 4-5 total this school year) are intended as a series, as one of our goals is to bring in a consistent audience. That is, we'd love for caregivers who attend one program to attend subsequent ones, in effect building on their parenting skills and confidence from topic to topic. More on the topics in a minute.

Each POP! Parents of Preschoolers program follows a common format. First, there is some low-key social time. The library provides coffee, tea, and cookies, and the program facilitator--who may be a library staffer or a paid expert presenter--encourages friendly chatter with a goal of parents building a support network with other parents via their shared use of the library. Social time is about 15-20 minutes of the 60-minute program, and so far, after two programs, parents are expressing that they really enjoy getting to talk with other parents who have kids the same age as they do.

The second part of the program is the parenting topic of the program. This is the bulk of the program, the part in which the facilitator shares information and expertise on the topic of the day. This isn't really a lecture--rather, it's a guided conversation, with hands-on examples highly encouraged. We want attending parents to build their confidence in applying what they know and learn to their parenting, and we're finding this model is a good one for what we aim to accomplish.

In putting together the initial slate of topics for the inaugural season of POP! Parents of Preschoolers, I looked at preschool parenting/development topics in which we have staff expertise and/or need expressed by parents who use the library. We've been offering one POP! program in each of our two-month calendar cycles, which means we've covered two topics so far, with two (maybe three) after the new year:

• October: Reading to Succeed (all about early literacy)
• November: Screen Time (all about media use)
• February: Boredom Busters (engaging activities to have on hand)
• March: name tbd (an expert is coming to speak on nutrition and food habits)

I'm also considering a fifth program based on an area of need expressed by parents who've attended so far: sleep and bedtime routines. I've got a local sleep specialist in mind to talk to in the next few weeks to see if/how we can make that topic work.

So that's POP! Parents of Preschoolers. To reiterate, we've got a few core goals for the program:

1. Parents will build skills and confidence in their abilities as parents of young children.
2. Parents will develop a social support network with other parents of young children.
3. Parents will consider the library a place that supports their role as parents of young children.

I plan to write again in the next few weeks to cover some additional aspects of the program, including how we're trying to incentivize repeat attendance and a recap of the recent Screen Time program, which I facilitated. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what others are doing in the realm of caregiver engagement programs, and I'm also always happy to answer questions.

Librarianship on YouTube: How to Make Finger Puppets

Remember that time I made a cameo in a YouTube video for the BOOMbox, the STEAM space at my library? Well, this time around, I have more than a cameo--I'm the guest expert walking folks through the steps of how to make finger puppets! Check out the video for full instructions on how to make adorable, handmade, simply-sewn finger puppets that are perfect for use in storytimes or as gifts. They're a great simple maker activity, too, if you're looking for those at your library; we've had kids making Minion finger puppets galore, plus favorite superheroes, etc., etc.



If you watched the video, did you catch the terrific puns? They were completely unplanned, I promise. Also make sure you catch the impromptu Little Red Hen scene at the end. Being a librarian is the best.

The Privilege of Serving on Heavy Medal

I've got a guest post over on Heavy Medal today. The post started germinating for me when Nina Lindsay and I chatted about representation (or its lack thereof), and its effects, on award selection committees last winter as part of her SLJ piece on the 2015 youth media awards.

My post today is on the privilege of serving, and what I feel those with that privilege have a responsibility to do: to recognize their privilege in whatever form(s) it takes, and to challenge themselves to read and discuss outside the confines of their particular experience in a deep manner that is as cognizant as possible of the existence of bias.

Again, it's linked here: "The Privilege of Serving" on Heavy Medal.

And, if you have found yourself here on The Show Me Librarian after following a link from the Heavy Medal post, and have any interest in my previous writing on this topic of privilege and youth librarianship, I've got two additional posts for you:

• "Selection is Privilege" (which came out of some privileged discussions about those same 2015 youth media awards)
• "Problematic Trust: Why We Can't Just 'Trust Child Readers'" (take on the recent discussions of The Hired Girl)

Thank you, also, to Nina and Jonathan at Heavy Medal for having me to guest post.

Problematic Trust: Why We Can't Just "Trust Child Readers"

There have been some conversations happening recently, both with substantial bits taking place on SLJ's A Fuse #8 Production, on a couple of topics that you might have thought wouldn't be connected. First there's Monday's "Are Historical Heroes Allowed to Have Prejudices in Children's Literature?" which responds to and expounds on conversation at Heavy Medal about Laura Amy Schlitz's The Hired Girl, out this year. That one, as the title suggests, explores the topic of characters in historical fiction having and/or expressing racial (and other) prejudices contemporary to their time period. Second is Tuesday's "Hands Off, Hussy! Hot Men of Children's Literature Under (Too Little?) Fire"--blogger Betsy Bird's take on how a recent New York Magazine piece harkens, in some ways, to her past Hot Men of Children's Literature series on her blog.

Like I said, you might not expect there to be any connection between the two. By all means, I think you should read them both--and that specifically includes the thoughtful discussion in the comments as well. But what I want to respond to here is the common thread in these pieces: the idea that we should simply "trust child readers."

The implied argument is that, if we "trust child readers," the problematic aspects of prejudices and sexism in literature can't really be that bad or have much of an impact. This, to me, is a milquetoast argument ignorant of the world in which we live.

You see, I do trust child readers. I trust them to take what they read in books and understand it within the larger context of what they read and know and experience. The problem here lies in that the context available to children who live on this planet, and specifically in this country, is fundamentally prejudiced and sexist. And we simply cannot trust anybody, youth or not, to independently reject a prejudiced opinion or sexist construct when the very reality of day to day life perpetuates these opinions and constructs. It may happen some of the time, but that's not a probability I want to trust.

I think it is irresponsible for people who aim to get books into the hands of children to "trust child readers" all on their own, because readers cannot trust entrenched societal norms and constructs to give them an unbiased, equitable view of the world to have as a baseline. If the world you live in is rife with microaggressions and revisionist history where it comes to First/Native Nations--which is the case here in the United States--it is unreasonable to suggest that we can "trust child readers" to understand the nuance and historicity of a passage in which a protagonist thinks:

“It seemed to me–I mean, it doesn’t now, but it did then–as though Jewish people were like Indians: people from long ago; people in books. I know there are Indians out West, but they’re civilized now, and wear ordinary clothes. In the same way, I guess I knew there were still Jews, but I never expected to meet any.” -The Hired Girl, Laura Amy Schlitz

We cannot "trust child readers" to use other books and what they know about the world to understand the underlying prejudice or sexism of a passage/character/plot device. We cannot trust because other books and what readers know about the world reinforces such underlying prejudice and sexism, rather than assisting in debunking or even pointing out the problematic aspects.

Basically, we do not live in a world in which we can "trust child readers" because our world is one in which prejudice and sexism are so very entrenched that they affect all aspects of a person's life, from their education to what they see in their entertainment to who runs, and wants to run, their government.

We also do not live in a world in which we can feel confident that the next book that a child picks up, or the one after that, or even the one after that will offer a different perspective, a less prejudiced or biased one. We know that the representation of people of color and other types of diversity in books for youth is consistently dismal, and often problematic when it's there at all. We know that publishing isn't getting any more diverse, so we're not going to suddenly get a pool of better diverse books by diverse authors who know what they're talking about as opposed to representation that is frequently stereotypical and rife with tokenism.

So if children cannot rely on what they see in the world, and what they see in other books, can we responsibly say that trusting child readers is sufficient? I say, resoundingly, no. It's not sufficient. It's not okay, and in fact it contributes to these persistent and systemic problems of racial prejudice and sexism.

What I do think is that, instead of affirming that we should just "trust child readers" and all will end well, we need to work harder. Authors need to work harder to make sure that when they include moments of prejudice and sexism, they do so because it is necessary to the story and they do so with nuance. Journalists need to work harder to consider the impact their pieces will have--because satire that perpetuates sexism isn't really satire, it's status quo. And librarians and others who want for children to read and enjoy great books need to work harder to demand that the books available to children in the first place are better, are representative, are respectful and not microagressive.

It is very easy for all of us to shirk this work. That's what the establishment, which runs on privilege oppressing the "other," would have us do.

I think we can be better. But I'm not just going to trust us to do better. I need to actively see and live it. Don't you?

Librarianship on YouTube: How to Hack a T-Shirt

Folks have been actively ramping up our YouTube content here at my library, and this initiative has recently begun to include showing what takes place in the BOOMbox, our STEAM space. This September through December is all about textiles in the BOOMbox, and the first of our YouTube videos highlighting a textiles activity is available online. So take a few minutes to see how you can hack a t-shirt into a tote bag! Featured is my colleague Amy Holcomb, who runs the space. But be on the lookout for a cameo from yours truly.

And a note: while we filmed this video as a way to highlight an activity that kids and adults can do in our BOOMbox, it's an activity that anyone can do pretty much anywhere. All that's required is a t-shirt and scissors. Our in-house goal for these videos is that Skokie residents who cannot visit the BOOMbox can still participate in activities around our theme. A benefit for everyone with the internet? You can do this activity, too! No makerspace or real expertise required. So get hacking! Seems like a possible project for DIY holiday gifts...