Tricks to finding clean, family media.
These days we seem to be absolutely swimming in media. Computers, tablets, cell phones, movies television and let's not forget the ever present daily teen aged necessity of music!
We do have what I consider to be a pretty conservative limit on media time in our house, but even with that comes the nearly Herculean task of guarding our kid's hearts while allowing them to participate in the fun and learning experiences that modern technology can offer.
Let's break things down a bit. Magazines like Farm & Ranch, Clean Eating, Country Cottage, and Family Circle aren't very likely to contain inappropriate images or language. They may, however, offer viewpoints on history, politics or finance that you don't quite agree with. These are acceptable infractions in our home (allowed more frequently after a solid value system is in place) and they enable us to call attention to our own beliefs and the reasoning behind them.
-Magazines we love-
Clubhouse/ Clubhouse Jr. (by Focus on the Family)
-News-
We don't watch much t.v. anymore and have become pretty accustomed to streaming things without commercials. That being said, news is an important part of being informed/active citizens, but where do you find a family friendly network? Try these on for size.
-Movie lists-
If you like period films, you'll love this! It's a list of family friendly period dramas from Willow and Thatch. Or try 300 family friendly movies from TV Guardian.
-Music-
I really rely on recommendations from friends and our favorite content review sites (see below) for this. Amazon Prime music has a decent selection of "clean" songs. But, be advised that, for Amazon, this simply means no profanity. They DO have a feature called "X-ray Lyrics" that allows you to scroll through the lyrics rather than listening to the entire song. I like to turn the volume way down and check on things that way- in case something objectionable pops up. These songs can be downloaded for offline listening.
There are also stations to choose from. (These require streaming). We quite enjoy the unlimited amount of skips and the thumbs up or down feature. Thumbs up results in similar songs or artists being played- where a thumbs down means they refine things better to your taste and won't play that song again. Stations we like include relaxation, study music, classical, Christmas and popular Christian.
-Content Reviews-
This is where it may get touchy. We've decided not to use some of the more popular sites for checking movies. I've been a bit cautious of the "follow your favorite celeb" culture and disagree with some of their age descriptions. Instead, we use Common Sense Media and Plugged In.
Run by Focus on the Family, Plugged In is my favorite. They include a section about spiritual content and are more descriptive (and conservative) about objectionable content. In addition to movies, they cover tv shows, video games, books, music and have an app. (Apple) (Google) They've only been around for several years and have yet to dive into reviewing past media so if you're checking on content prior to about five years ago- this one won't work for you. Common Sense Media (on the other hand) has quite an archive of content reviews. They cover all of the categories Plugged In does, but have also been reviewing websites and apps for a while. We have used their site for about five years now and have pretty pleased with their rating methods.
Family Friendly Gaming is a site I am relatively new to. They focus exclusively on gaming and review PC, console and app gaming. Their descriptions are detailed and the list of games pretty comprehensive. We haven't purchased any new games in the last several months, so I'll update the post on their accuracy in the future.
If I want to know that things are really up to our standards, I go with sources I trust to provide safe, fun, family content. One of the ways we do this is with The Dove Channel. Watchable online, via the app (Android) (iTunes) or through Amazon Video Channels, Dove provides lots of options!
The free version (not available through Amazon) has t.v. shows and movies that rotate week to week. As of this article's posting, they have season one of Highway to Heaven, Left Behind, The Courage to Love, and Gold Strike Fever. The paid subscription offers a much larger selection with Doggy day care, Constitution Alive, The Little Rascals, Coast Guard Florida, Abbot and Costello and many more!
What does your family do for "clean media?" We'd love to hear about your go-to's. If there's something we haven't covered, or one of these becomes a new favorite, let us know.
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