Essays

Children and adolescents spend almost 22-28 hours per weekwatching television. This is a sad fact because this is the largestamount of hours spent on any activity in your child's life,aside from sleeping. Television has a large influence onchildren's attitudes, ideas and behavior. According to asurvey, teens witness 10,000 murders, rapes and aggravatedassaults per year on TV and four out of five people believethat violence on television directly contributes to the waychildren view violence. When children watch TV, they seeother made up families, who deal with their problems differentfrom how anyone else would. Children assume that this ishow there life should be.

We should teach our children about the reality of TVbecause television can affect the way a child acts, thinks andfeels about different issues such as violence, education, morality and gender, racial stereotypes TV glorifies violenceand weapons and teaches children that the easiest way ofresolving problems is through violence.

Some famous children's programs portray world-savingheroes that children look up to and admire. They assume thatif the strong, invincible lieroes are around, the world is a safeplace to be where they are free form harm. When really, theydon't understand these characters don't exist and can't savethem or the world from those that would hurt them.

Parents must teach their children that these people arenot real, don't exist, can't save the world, that it isn't possiblefor anyone to do this on their own and that at one time oranother, everyone needs someone's help. TV programs suchas these shows also can frighten children too. They may befrightened by the ugly, strong villains. We must teach childrenthat all villains are not scary, powerful or ugly but they do tryto 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 whatI hey are watching. Some shows are very educational programsdesigned for children. If children watch these types of shows, they will also try to portray their favourite heroes with no violence.

A child's reaction all depends on what they are exposedto. The age of the child also plays a large factor on how aprogram teaches these children. For example, viewingprograms of vocabulary games at the age of 3-3 1/2 has apositive effect on a child's vocabulary. The effects ofeducational programs depend on variables such as: a parent'seducation, the family size, the sex of the child and parental attitudes.

Television also plays a strong role on a child's developingmorality. Children who watch TV programs that affect theirmorality may tend to have a higher pregnancy or criminal rate than others who don't watch the same shows. The natureof these kinds of shows 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 shows affect adults as well. If an adult can't handle them, how can childrenIn' expected to?

When children watch TV, they are strongly influenced by recial 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 findan 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 shows 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 and 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' is only the 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 and movies with your children and by discussing 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.