DANIEL TIGER'S NEIGHBORHOOD And PBS KIDS Launch Free Resources To Help Families

With an increasing number of families around the nation hunkering down and staying home, we wanted to share some free resources from PBS Kids that can help parents reduce their children's anxiety and keep them occupied and learning.

The beloved Fred Rogers Productions series Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood has some useful tips on how families, parents and caregivers can help relieve children's insecurities and fears, including:

• Provide safe ways for children to express their feelings such as drawing or telling stories.
• Listen carefully to what your children are talking about. Acknowledge their feelings. Give them the words to describe how they feel such as, "It sounds like you're feeling 'scared,' 'unsure about what's going to happen next,' 'sad,' 'angry,' etc.
• Remember to be calm and understanding when children are being clingy, whiny, or overactive. Helping them regain control of their feelings reassures them that you are keeping them safe.
• Keep routines as familiar as possible.
• Minimize children's exposure to media coverage.

And the links below from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood offer advice about ways to stay healthy as well as helping young children navigate new things, including Germs, Germs Go Away Handwashing and A Germ Fighting Superhero videos; Draw Your Feelings activity page; Doctor Daniel game; and article on How to Prepare Children for Unexpected Events.

In addition to the materials from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, PBS Kids is offering a wide variety of free information and resources to support families at this time. A daily PBS KIDS newsletter, available to parents starting today, provides activities and tips for keeping kids learning and entertained if they are home from school.

PBS KIDS for Parents is another resource with information, activities and advice to make it easier for parents to cope with uncertain times and keep the learning going at home. This article on how kids and parents can de-stress during coronavirus is a good example, and it also points to videos from social emotional-based properties (like Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood) which can help the whole family. Additional resources include:

• The PBS Kids 24/7 channel offers anytime access to trusted educational series for kids ages 2-8
• The free PBS Kids Video app, available on mobile, tablet and connected TV devices, offers on-demand educational videos, and livestream of PBS Kids 24/7 channel. No subscription required.
• The free PBS Kids Games app offers nearly 200 educational games, which can be downloaded for offline play anytime, anywhere. Learn more about these and PBS KIDS' other apps here: https://pbskids.org/apps/

PBS KIDS for Parents also features great arts activities based on the popular show Pinkalicious & Peteriffic so that families can be creative and have fun together at home. The activities include Tell Me a Story, Create Your Own Accidental Art and Dance Party, among many others. Season 2 of Pinkalicous & Peterrific will premiere on March 30 with a week of new episodes focusing on arts education, music, dance and visual arts.

Beyond PBS KIDS, another amazing resource perfect for parents of young children is a catchy song about the importance of washing your hands and being "in the clean hands club" from CoComelon (the second-most popular channel on all of YouTube, and the #1 kids channel - with more than 51.6 billion video views to date). CoComelon videos feature nursery rhyme songs, along with a character named JJ, an adorable family and a colorful cast of 20+ characters.

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