Percocet

I believe that television can influence children in good and bad ways. Depending of what types of shows and channels the kids are watching it could actually be a good thing. If a child is only allowed to watch kids shows, and kids’ channels they won’t learn anything bad. If children are just watching shows like Dora the Explorer and Jake’s Neverland Island, they aren’t going to learn anything bad; they may actually learn things that are beneficial. With Dora the Explorer they learn problem solving and also get introduced to some Mexican culture and Spanish. If you were to let a child watch adult shows though, it may not turn out very well. For instance, if you let a little girl grow up watching shows like Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant, they grow up thinking that the way these girls act is ok, because hey, if they’re on TV, they must be doing something right.

The advantages of letting children watch TV are that if you let them watch the right kinds of shows they will learn things, like I mentioned above. If you let them watch Discovery Kids, they may get more into science and want to do experiments at home and be more excited to go to school specifically to go to science class and learn. TV can also help kids figure out what they like to do. If they see someone doing something on TV, they may want to try to do it to. For example, if the child sees someone playing football, they may want to go try out for the team. I also think a lot of it has to do with the kid’s home life. Some disadvantages could be if they have a bad home life, they may use TV as a way to escape and then they end up watching way too much TV and never doing anything else. People prohibit their kids from watching TV mostly because they are trying to protect them, I think. I don’t personally think anything on TV is really that bad that your kids need “protecting” from, but I know that a lot of parents are more protective then I see myself being one day. Some parents only let their kids watch PBS and KQED which are local stations that only play kids shows. I know of some people who had parents that didn’t let them watch TV at all. I personally think that not letting children watch any kids of TV is more harmful than helpful. Other kids can think that it’s odd that this other kid never watches TV, and in turn they may start to get bullied. They also will not be able to input into the conversation if anyone is talking about a TV show they saw last night or what their favorite show is. I think that a problem a lot of people are worried about when it comes to children and TV is something called Television babysitting. Television babysitting means using the TV as a babysitter so you don’t have to deal with your kid. I think that a lot of people do this, and I think that sometimes it’s necessary. I’m in no way saying that you should do it all the time, but if you’re having a really difficult time multitasking as much as you need too, and you just need to get some cleaning or cooking or anything done and you don’t have anyone to watch your child, if you put them in front of an appropriate TV show or movie, I think that it is fine. I think that it gets to be a problem when you just leave your child in front of the TV all day long and they get barely any human interaction. I feel that everything is good in moderation, so I feel that it is fine for kids to watch TV, and as long as you don’t let them watch garbage constantly, it shouldn’t be a problem. A lot of people have done studies on the affect that the violence on television has on children. They have found that some children become desensitized to the violence that they are seeing and get more aggressive with their peers and family. Children can also start having a harder time telling the difference between good and bad, because on some TV shows, the bad guy is portrayed as the good guy, even though he is not doing nice things at all. The child becomes confused, because the character that they like on TV is doing these things and being praised for it, so they think that it is the right behavior and are confused when their parents tell them otherwise. Another problem I’ve seen is when kids think that they are ready to watch a scary movie or show on TV and then end up being scared out of their minds. If you let a child watch a show that has some kind of death scene, or even someone getting shot or hit, you can tell them that it isn’t real, and that the person is really ok, but they can’t always understand that because they are so young.
I remember when I was younger, my babysitter let me watch JAWS and I didn’t sleep for weeks. I was so afraid to go even into the bathtub. Just because my babysitter told me it wasn’t real, and that there weren’t any sharks that big, especially not in my bathtub, but I didn’t believe her. I had seen cartoons where the main character would be in the bathtub and all of a sudden a shark would pop up and start chasing him in circles around the tub and I was convinced that that was going to happen to me. I didn’t understand that it wasn’t even possible, because kids don’t think the way adults do and they don’t understand that certain things can’t happen.

I don’t believe that TV is to blame completely for kids being more violent though. I feel that if that was the case every child would be at least a little bit more violent. There aren’t many kids who watch no TV and no movies, so no matter what they are going to be getting these images and ideas into their heads. Just because a child watches a lot of TV, doesn’t mean they are going to be a crazy violent person, just like a child watching absolutely no TV at all, doesn’t mean that they are going to be a perfect child. I think the real problem is parents not really spending enough time with their kids. If you’re there to tell them that something isn’t right, they are going to listen to you instead of the TV.