Empty idols: Celebrity woes can be teaching tools

By Rachel Kubicek The recently bald Britney Spears is out of rehab.

Lindsay Lohan was out of rehab, but now she’s back in. And Paris Hilton? She’s currently sitting in a jail cell.

With these women and other troubled celebrities often looked up to as role models by young people, how should parents address the situation?



Teaching right from wrong

Mariann Morgan of Carthage, Mo., said she limits her children’s exposure to celebrities’ legal and personal woes.

“We don’t routinely watch the news in front of (the kids),” she said. “We watch the 10 o’clock news. We also don’t watch entertainment type shows that have stories about them.”

Morgan’s son, Conner, 12, has role models in the sports industry and her daughter, Hadley, 9, gravitates toward media personalities such as Raven-Symoné and the actors and actresses in “High School Musical,” so she hasn’t had to address the situation so far.

Morgan plans to use negative media exposure as a chance to explain the difference between right and wrong and that it’s not the correct way to act, should the need arise.

“Every child is going to have a role model, and we do encourage it by buying jerseys, but if there is something they have done that isn’t right, we would need to talk to them about it,” she said. “Especially with a 12-year-old. He’s at the age now where it’s not just about what Mom and Dad say. He is making choices by himself.”

Asking questions will let you know where your child stands on these celebrity actions.

“I sometimes ask kids point blank, ‘Would you do the things they are doing?’” said Dr. Charles Doyle, a licensed clinical psychologist for College Skyline Center in Joplin. “If they say yes, then you obviously have something to talk with your kid about and if they say no, they have revealed the congruency they have between themselves and their role model.”



Opportunity to teach

Lindsay Matush, marketing director for The Bridge, uses the negative actions of high-profile celebrities to address the real issues of body image and self worth.

“The conversation is easy to have because they are seeing those people and reading about them in magazines, and we embrace that as a chance to talk to them about the things that matter, that Lindsay Lohan isn’t a good role model and isn’t someone they should try to be like,” Matush said. “She looks completely cheap in that picture and that’s not who you want to be like.”

There is a difference between the person your child sees in the media and who they actually are.

“People on the movie screen, musicians on the stage and celebrities on the walkway are never who they appear to be in front of others,” Doyle said. “Helping (your child) understand they are real people with real problems just like anyone else helps them to move from role model or hero to someone they can learn from rather than idolize.”



Positive role models

The Bridge has a Ladies Night where girls get together and talk, said Matush. During this time, the girls are exposed to positive role models.

“The staff we hire are women who the girls can look up to,” she said. “A positive role model dresses modestly, saves herself and has a positive self image.

“The girls know these role models are people they can look up to and who care about them. It’s all about relationships.”



Rachel Kubicek writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.