As parents and educational professionals you don’t have time to monitor every piece of media that young people watch. Many of us trust movie ratings to guide the permission process.

But according to a recent study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of The University of Pennsylvania the rates of violent episodes in PG-13 rated movies exceed those rated R. By a technicality, the rating system is now unreliable; you cannot use the Motion Picture Association’s ratings determine what media your children watch.

It’s bad news for parents because those movies are also very heavily marketed to young people and films are an easy summer diversion.

The only answer is to read synopses, watch trailers, as well as available clips from the films, if not the movies themselves, before you let your child watch them.

It’s not just troubling that there is violence in these movies; it’s disturbing that violent behavior is glorified and celebrated. There is also scant respect for authority and characters push aside law enforcement to go on violent binges to “take care of the problem.”

No matter which way you twist it, behavioral research indicates that watching violent behavior on screen leads to an increase of violent behavior off screen. This isn’t necessarily only physical violence, but also emotional or psychological.

Your child will be affected by watching violent media of any kind! Movies aren’t the only media that’s seeing a stark uptick in violence so extra vigilance is required.

Last week I spoke to NBC about this extremely troubling trend. Let’s be part of the positive change that guides small beings to be peaceful adults. (Click to Tweet)