What Parents Must Do to Reduce TV Impact?

Children and TV Children and adolescence’s spend almost 22-28 hours per

week watching television. This is a sad fact because this is the largest amount

of hours spent on any activity in your child’s life, aside from sleeping.

Television has a large influence on children’s attitudes, ideas, and

behaviors. Teens witness 10,000 murders, rapes and aggravated assaults

per year on TV, and four out of five Americans believe that violence on

television directly contributes to the way children view violence.

When children

watch TV, they see other made up families, who deal with their problems

different from how anyone else would. Children assume that this is how there

life should be. We should teach out children about the reality of TV because

Television can affect the way a child acts, thinks, and feels about different

issues such as violence, education/morality, and gender/racial stereotypes

TV glorifies violence and weapons, and teaches children that the easiest way

of resolving problems is through violence.

Children’s programs such a

Power Rangers or The X-Men portray world-saving heroes that children

look up to and admire. They assume that if the strong, invincible heroes are

around, the world is a safe place to be where they are free form harm. When

really, they don’t understand these characters don’t exist and can’t save them

or the world from those that would hurt them. Parents must teach their children

that these people are not real, don’t exist, can’t save the world, that it isn’t

possible for anyone to do this on their own, and that at one time or another,

everyone needs someone’s help. TV programs such as these shows also can

frighten children too. They may be frightened by the ugly, strong villains. We

must teach children that all villains are not scary, powerful or ugly but they do try to fool people, young and old. It is very easy for children to lose their own sense of reality while watching shows that contain violence. They must be

taught otherwise and how to be smart about TV and what they are watching.

Shows like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood have been

around since 1969. Not only that, these shows are very educational programs

designed for children. If children watch these types of shows, they will also try to portray their favorite heroes such as the Power rangers except now with no violence. A child’s reaction all depends on what they are exposed to. The age of the child also plays a large factor on how a program teaches these

children. For example, viewing Sesame street at the age of 3-3 1/2 has a

positive effect on a child’s vocabulary. Ages 5-7 require vocabulary at a higher

level than what is shown on sesame street. The effects of educational

programs depend on variables such as: a parents education, the family size,

the sex of the child, and parental attitudes. Television also plays a strong role on a child’s developing morality. Children who watch TV programs that affect their morality such as Jerry springier may tend to have a higher pregnancy or criminal rate than others who don’t watch the same shows. The nature of this kind of show, and their air times are also problems because then children are able to watch these shows without parental explanation to what they are seeing. These show affect adults as well. If an adult can’t handle them, how

can children be expected to? When children watch TV, they are strongly

influenced by racial stereotypes. Even though it’s changed greatly over the

past decades, black people are usually still depicted negatively, as criminals

or as the victims. This has a great affect on a child of that race. When people

of their own race do not appear on television, these children may feel as

though they are not important in society. They may discover that it is hard to

find am appropriate role model of their on culture, this can result in a negative effect on their developing self-esteem. There should be people of all races included in TV programs interacting with each other, rather than show

Exclusively of white people or shows exclusively of black people. Television

Also affects children’s gender stereotypes. Males are typically depicted as

Being more powerful, a competent than females. They are also shown in

Stereotypical occupations, whereas women are largely portrayed as sex

objects. In order to help resolve the problems on TV, there are many steps

parents can take to avoid them: they can limit TV viewing by teaching children

not to depend on TV as they’re only source of entertainment. Parents should

limit viewing to 1-2 hours per day, and teach them to spend time talking or

playing. You can also monitor what your child is watching, by watching TV and

movies with your children and by discussing what is being seen, Teach your

child that violence on TV is not real and explain that in reality, people,

including children are hurt and killed by guns. Children must be guided into

doing the right thing by their parents instead of watching the violence shown

on TV because it shows how it is okay to use force to solve their problems. TV

also gives the impression to children that education is not needed in order to

succeed in life, and that stereotypes are also shown to be considered that

there is no harm in teasing others that are different from themselves and

different from what is the accepted normality of society.