Empowering Parents: Workshop Highlights

19 March, 2025
Mala Annamma Mathew

In today’s world, digital engagement is the norm. Understanding and navigating media literacy is essential for both parents and children. The Pixel Literacy media initiative, supported by Poplar HARCA and Republic, aimed to address this growing need within the Aberfeldy Village community. This post outlines the key findings, outcomes, and future recommendations from this impactful project.

Baseline Findings

To design effective workshops, we conducted a baseline assessment. This included a survey and focus group discussions with 15 parents aged 24 to 45. Below are the main findings:

Parental Comfort with Technology: About 60% of parents felt somewhat comfortable with technology. Only 33% were fully confident. This showed a need for further support.
Household Technology Rules: Most parents had partial or no clear technology rules at home. This indicated a lack of structure for managing children’s media use.
Children’s Screen Time: Around 80% of children spent 2-4 hours or more on screens daily. This suggested potential overexposure without enough parental oversight.
Media Literacy Conversations: Only 20% of parents had started conversations about media literacy with their children. This highlighted a significant communication gap.

Workshop Outcomes

With these findings, we designed two interactive workshops tailored to the parents’ needs.

The first workshop, titled Empowering Parents: Conversations about Media Habits, aimed to equip parents with strategies to start meaningful conversations about media content and encourage critical media consumption. The 2-hour interactive session included group discussions, role-playing, and practical handouts. By the end of the session, participants reported feeling more confident in discussing media literacy with their children.

The second workshop, Navigating Online Identities with Your Children, focused on providing parents with tools to guide their children in building positive, responsible online identities. This 2-hour session featured role-playing and worksheets that highlighted the importance of managing digital footprints and online reputations. Parents left the workshop feeling better equipped to support their children’s online presence and handle conversations about digital behaviour.

Key Post-Workshop Insights

Feedback after the workshops revealed:

Increased Comfort in Discussions: Every parent felt more prepared to discuss media literacy.
Non-Verbal Communication Awareness: Parents became more aware of the impact of non-verbal cues on conversations.
Collaboration with Children: Many parents saw the value of creating rules together with their children. This approach encouraged shared responsibility.

Challenges and Recommendations

Despite the positive outcomes, the project faced challenges:

Recruitment Difficulties: Initial outreach methods, such as marketing emails, were not very effective.
Awareness Gap Many parents were unfamiliar with media literacy until they were individually approached. This showed a gap in awareness.

Recommendations

Follow-Up Studies: Implement a longitudinal study to track long-term impacts.
Annual Sessions: Organise yearly workshops to keep parents updated on media trends.
Personal Outreach: Engage parents through direct communication to increase participation.

Conclusion

The Pixel Literacy initiative is a promising first step towards fostering media literacy in the Aberfeldy Village community. While it provided valuable tools to parents, ongoing support and engagement are essential to expanding its impact. By building on this foundation, we can continue to empower parents and create a media-literate community ready for the digital age.

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