Ages & Grades
3rd - 4thPre-K | Kindergarten | 1st - 2nd | 3rd - 4th | 5th - 6th | 7th - 8th | High School
Highlights
- They enjoy tween sitcoms and reality shows
- They start visiting video-sharing sites like YouTube
- They look to older kids to "age up" and idolize
- Kids seeking or stumbling upon inappropriate content online is a concern for parents
Watch
- Cartoons, tween sitcoms, and reality shows on broadcast and cable channels such as Disney, Nickelodeon, ABC Family, Fox, and the CW
- Live action PG and some PG-13 rated movies
- Online worlds with their own avatars like Neopets, Club Penguin, and Webkinz
- Multi-player online games such as Dizzywood
- Starts visiting video sharing sites like YouTube
- Email accounts
- Using the Internet for school work
- E10+ and some T-rated sports, action, and fantasy games on video consoles and handhelds
- Cell phones
- Body consciousness
- Look to older kids to “age up” and idolize
- Peer pressure begins
- Understand the difference between fantasy and reality
- Can follow several story lines at once
- Loss of control of media selection
- Setting time limits
- Setting up online safety and parental control features
- Balancing kids’ growing independence with safety concerns, particularly as it relates to sharing of personal information online
- Kids seeking or stumbling upon inappropriate online content and sharing with others
- Some cheating, stealing, and mean chat in online games and virtual worlds
- Credibility of information in news and online sources
- Self-directed communication online via email and mobile phones
- Children’s exposure to consumerism, in particular advergames, advertisements, and product tie-ins to online worlds
- Children’s exposure to violence in games, exacerbated by first-person point of view
- Recognition of stereotypes by race and gender
- Body image issues related to skinny models / celebrities and toned athletes
- Inability for kids to turn off handheld gaming devices or exit multi-player online games
The information included in this guide is a reference point for what most children are exposed to at each grade level.
All children and families are different, therefore this may not be accurate for all children.