Watch It! : What Parents Need to Know to Raise Media-Smart Kids

Virtually all parents believe that "other kids may be influenced by the media, but my kid isn't." However, up until about the age of eight, kids are not able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. So they actually don't know the difference between real life and what they see, hear and learn on TV, radio, video games and the Internet.

Mary Strom Larson has been a professor of Communications at Northern Illinois University since 1985. She has regularly taught courses in ôMedia and Societyö and ôThe Media, Children and Adolescents.ö She has been published in scholarly journals and has been featured on National Public Radio's Todd Mundi Show, WIFR television, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, First for Women, Chicago Parent, Chicago Southtown Economist, and numerous local and regional publications. She appeared at the Chicago Cultural Center with TV moms June Cleaver, Shirley Partridge and Joan Nash in a panel titled, ôFrom My Little Margie to Murphy Brown: Images of Women on Television.ö She has also presented ôTelevision and the Adolescent Issues of Particular Importance to the Medical Communityö to Pediatric Interns at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. She has served on the Media Literacy Task Force of the NCA.