T.E.A.M. Decency

Ideas on how to create a Family Decency Standard from Communities For Decency Website:

Educate Your Family

In this world of eroding values, who will step up to define an acceptable standard of decency?

Creating a Family Decency Standard

Have you ever considered a movie’s rating in making a decision whether or not to see it, only to be shocked or feel betrayed by what is contained? Ratings generated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), gaming and music labels, TV ratings, and the Supreme Court’s “Miller Test” all attempt to define what is and what is not decent. Certainly any meaningful endeavor to protect individuals and families from indecent entertainment must begin with a working definition of what is and what is not decent, but can we depend on the current rating systems to protect our families ?

Unfortunately, in the present environment we simply cannot rely on these inadequate gauges of appropriateness. In this world of eroding values, who will step up to define an acceptable standard of decency? Recent research done on behalf of Communities for Decency suggests decency standards must originate in families and communities.

Creating a family decency standard is one way to empower individuals to make informed entertainment choices. The following method of discussing decency standards works well for adults and children ages 11 and older.

Preparatory Steps:

• Familiarize yourself with the MPAA rating system and other public sources on decency standards.
• Set up two one-hour family meetings to discuss family decency standards.
• Obtain movie reviews on several current movies from relaible websites such as pluggedinonline.com or gradingthemovies.com. Note: Descriptions of movie content are factual and detailed. CFD encourages parents to use these websites.

Ground Rules and Intent

• Parents should act primarily as facilitators whose job will be to listen and learn what decency means in their family and to carefully guide the discussion toward the desired end.
• All topics related to entertainment and what the family views are open for discussion.

Meeting One: Creating a Meaningful Framework

• Review the ground rules and intent of the session.
• Review the MPAA rating system and other definitions of decency.
• Allow family members to comment on how these frameworks help or do not help your family. For instance, is a PG or PG-13 movies rating an adequate measure of appropriateness for your family?
• Brainstorm a list of what is sacred to your family. Examples may include God, our bodies, marriage, and human life.
• Translate your list of what is sacred into a watch list of ways in which offensive content is woven into entertainment. This list may include violence or taking human life, lifestyles with no respect for a moral code, use of profanity-laden dialogue, portrayals of inappropriate sexual relationships–even if those portrayals do not include explicit images.

Meeting Two: Creating a Family Standard of Decency

• Review the framework notes from the first meeting. Discuss other sources of information on movie content such as current movie reviews from pluggedinonline.com or gradingthemovies.com.
• Explore point by point the content from current movie reviews. Do these movies violate what is sacred in your family? Do they fit your framework of what is decent or indecent? Should your family view these movies? Movie reviews may contain explicit information generating a mature but necessary family discussion.
• Finalize a list of more specific definitions of what is and is not appropriate content for your family. For example: We will not watch explicit images (violent or sexual) that offend our family’s definition of what is sacred. We will not watch thematic or interpretive indecency that presents “evil as good” and “good as evil.” We will not watch movies with profanity or actions that run contrary to or offend our sense of what is sacred.
• Examine your library of DVDs, movies, and other forms of home entertainment. Agree to discard entertainment that violates your new family decency standard.
• Commit your family to using pluggedinonline.com or gradingthemovies.com, or like information sources for reviewing content prior to viewing or purchasing home entertainment.

What One Family Can Do

1. Hold Family Councils and decide what our media standards are going to be.
2. Spend enough quality time with our children so that we are consistently the main influence in their lives, not their friends or the media.
3. Make good media choices ourselves. Set a good example.
4. Limit the time of TV watching or video games or Internet use each day.
5. Use internet filters and TV programming locks.
6. Place TVs and computers in a much-used room of the home.

Watch appropriate media with our children and discuss with them how to make choices that will uplift and build rather than degrade and destroy.