Examining children’s television media is a depressing process. Most of it is useless junk. For the younger child, the content is simply noise, sounds, cute little animals, and moving colors designed to only hold the child’s attention until the next commercial that is carefully crafted to convince the children what they absolutely “must have”. For the older child, direct or implied violence is usually added to make it more exciting. This violence is carefully imbedded in Super Hero Characters, robots, magic, and the cute little animals that are usually being blown up, or hit, or shot, or slapped, or otherwise pummeled. Any constructive values that might be available are usually over-ridden by the implied messages that problems are best solved by violence, magic, etc.  Rarely are parents shown in a positive manner. Fortunately, there are still some excellent children’s programming available – such as Sesame Street and others. My point here is that they are in the small minority of the programming.

Movies and literature offer an excellent learning opportunity for the child as the availability of a parent for discussion is greatly increased. Although some of the moves are very well done, what basic values do you discuss with a child after seeing or reading Spiderman, or Transformers, or the Harry Potter series? Again, please remember that my comments are directed only toward the issues of teaching family values. Again there are notable exceptions. Movies such as the “Ice Age” series, “Stripes”, and “Lady and the Tramp”, provide fertile ground for discussion of self-image and family values. For younger children, books such as “The Brave Little Toaster” or “The Little Engine that Could” are also excellent in this regard.

t has been my experience that the vast majority of parents really do want to teach basic family values to their children – but they lack the basic skills and knowledge to have these meaningful positive conversations. This seems to be true in all economic, racial, and educational groups.

Where can the average parent turn to for this information? The average book store is crammed with books on dieting, self-improvement, and how to recognize if your child has whatever the poplar current dysfunction of the day is. Little will be available on teaching family values and how to have a productive conversation with your child. I have yet to see a community college or local university offer more than basic parenting classes. There are also a variety of electronic gadgets available that promise to make your child or infant a “Genius” quickly. These are usually cleverly packaged to take advantage of the guilt (or ego) that many parents feel regarding their role in educating their children. These tools can be useful and while I am not necessarily opposed to them, remember that they are knowledge-based only and require little or no parental involvement.

All of these issues are added to by the increasing pressures of parents working one or more jobs, single parent homes, long work days, limited budget, and other demands that make parenting much harder. 

My attempt to fill this void was to create “The Adventures of Seamus the Sheltie”. This illustrated award winning children’s book is designed to accomplish the following;

- Use likeable animals to teach family values in a gentle and non-threatening manner.
- Make the stories enjoyable enough to be read by the child or the parent.
- Include a Parents Guide that teaches a parent how to begin and have a values discussion with the child.
- Include in the Parents Guide the appropriate questions – and answers – for the values discussions of each individual story.
- Include a free downloadable Seamus Fan Club poster to list and remind the child of the values that were presented and discussed.
- Make the book as humorous and as much fun to read as possible.

My book, “The Adventures of Seamus the Sheltie” is published by Nightengale Press and may be reviewed in detail at:  jamesbeverly.npauthors.com