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Saying that violence in the media is having a negative effect on children is just an excuse for being a bad parent. I have a good reason for a child being terrible: the parent. I grant that a 2-year-old should not watch an R-rated movie, but sheltering kids too much will cause them shock when they reach the real world, and they will not know how to handle anything.
Good parents raise their kids with the morals they want them to have and teach them how to handle life. My sister, brother and I were raised on horror movies, and we are not violent, and we didn't have nightmares. We were never expelled from school, and we don't have psychological problems. Plus, I definitely know the difference between Michael Myers slashing a victim's throat and a real-life serial killer.
Children need to see a little violence to realize what life is really like. Otherwise, they will grow up being sissies. Television doesn't desensitize children; it toughens them up. It doesn't blend reality and fiction, either. Nobody said in the 1950s, don't let your children watch the Coyote and the Roadrunner because they might think they could really fall off a cliff and survive.
A study was done on preschoolers in Kansas to see how these violent cartoons affected them.
"Children who watch the violent shows, even 'just funny' cartoons, were more likely to hit out at their playmates, argue, disobey class rules, leave tasks unfinished and were less willing to wait for things than those who watched the nonviolent programs," said Dr. Aletha Huston of the University of Kansas.
So basically, the children weren't robots who did exactly what they were told to do exactly when they were told to do it after watching those nasty cartoons. That doesn't sound like aggressive behavior; it sounds like a kid being a kid.
"Parents can limit the amount of time children spend watching television and encourage children to spend their time on sports, hobbies or with friends," according to the American Psychological Association. "Parents and kids can even draw up a list of other enjoyable activities to do instead of watching TV."
Parents who actually care whether television is having an effect on their child will take the advice of the APA and get their kids out of the house into fresh air. I promise the air won't kill them.
Just because your kids are playing sports or hanging out with friends doesn't mean that parents can remain selfish and lazy. They still have to monitor who their kids are hanging out with. Being a parent doesn't mean being a friend to your child. It means getting up and driving over to your child's friend's house to make sure they're really there.
If parents quit being self-absorbed, then they would be able to raise their kids into good human beings.
Nobody ever said parenting was easy, so why don't the parents quit whining about their children being influenced by this bad, bad world and take a little responsibility?
yes violence in the media has anegative impact on children but you also must realize that the average us child watches anywhere from 36 to 44 hours of television a week...thats six and a half hours a day. so basically a large percentage of kids are basking in media violence because they sit and watch these programs all day. Parents have a responsibility to set limits for television in order to protect their children from this violence on tv, but a little violence on television never hurt anyone. On the other hand its getting to a point where some of the violence on tv is just ridiculous but thats another story..