Dr. Gail Gross
Human Behavior and Education Expert, Speaker, Author. Ph.D. Ed.D.
GET UPDATES FROM Dr. Gail Gross Like
474
Violence on TV and How It Can Affect Your Children
Posted: 08/15/2013 4:32 pm
Read more
Parenting Tips, Violence On Television, Violence On Tv Affects On Children, Parents News
15
8
0
45
0
Get Parents Newsletters:
Subscribe
Studies show that violence on television does have an adverse affect on children and the way they think and act. This is true not only for young children, but some recent studies indicate that watching violence on television can even impact adults.
We know that for the most part, children learn from both experience and social learning or role modeling. Therefore, when children, especially young children, see violence on television, they have a difficult time differentiating between what is real or what is make believe, and tend to emulate or copy what they are seeing. Furthermore, there is a chemical change in the brain, similar to that which is seen in post-traumatic stress disorder; if enough violence is viewed, the brain reacts as if the person doing the viewing has actually been abused. This is especially true if the violence is one sided, as in the case of sadistic violence. Now add to this the fact that children who watch violence on television have brains that are still developing, and you can see how really dangerous TV viewing can be.
We know, for instance, that children are psychologically affected by having less empathy, a characteristic we see in bullies; that they are more likely to use aggressive strategies to solve their problems rather than to search for more peaceful methods of conflict resolution; that they tend to be more reactive rather then proactive -- relying more on knee-jerk reactions to resolve frustrations; and finally, that they appear to be more fearful of social relationships which make them bite before they can be bitten. This perception of