Violence In The Media and children, What Can You Do?

This subject is a concern for all parents. Children are
influenced by what they see and children will imitate what they
learn from the internet, television, movies, radio, video games,
and from music. Therefore, parents must be conscious of what
their children take into their minds. Why? Our children are like
sponges and they will take in everything whether good or bad.
Then many act out in various ways and the last thing we need as
parents is to have our children negatively impacted by violence
seen through the media.


Watching our local television news broadcasts show murders,
kidnappings, riots, beatings, school violence, sport violence,
hostile take overs, racial hatred, and more. The news report is
becoming more graphic when reporting the above mentioned
problems. I can still remember the first time the news showed a
person being shot by a swat team. If I can remember that from
twenty years ago it shows it is imprinted on my brain. Yet,
today things are getting worse and so are the images,
especially in the movies.

As parents we must think of ways to lower these rates of violent
images seen by our children. We must think of ways to protect
our children and implement them. First of all we must talk to
our children and explain that violence is not acceptable and
that you do not want them affected by it when presented by the
media. Now our children know we do not want violence in our
homes.

Advice On How To Help Our Children

* Television with violent movies, prejudice, and hate should be
erradicated.
* Analyze the music listened to and ensure it is appropriate to
their age.
* When watching the news if a segment comes on with disturbing
images send the children out the room.
* Analyze all video games for violence and ensure children do
not play for excessive amounts of time.
* Set guidelines and stick to them and do not allow your
children to dictate what they want to do.

Does Violence Affect Children?

This subject is one that is open for debate as many say there is
no real problem. If there is no problem then why is it that when
the Karate Kid movies came out that there was a sharp increase
in registration for Karate clubs around the world? When the
Mutant Ninja Turtle movie was released martial arts registration
reportedly went up to ten times the normal rate. Why is it then
that the U.S. Armed Forces uses violent video games to influence
their troops? The reason is that violence does affect people.
For this reason children must be protected by their parents.

How To Keep Your Children Busy

Many parents have their children playing sports and the reason
is to keep them busy. Lets face it, if your son is playing on
the school volley ball team then he has practise at least twice
a week and games to play. With school and sports there is less
time for other activities that involve the media with violent
content.

Get your child to read more and watch television less. Some have
even sold their tv to focus on more benficial activities. You
can even read as a family and each member of the family has a
turn in choosing a book.

What I have done is all of the above, no tv in the house and we
read as a family and both my children are in a sport. Do they
miss the tv set, no as my wife and I have not had a tv for 16
years. I also have gone a step further with my daughter. She is
looking forward to having a baby store online. She takes out an
arm full of baby books from the library to read them. At her
baby sitting course the instructor took me aside and said to me
that she has never had a child speak with so much conviction and
knowledge about babies. She knew so much she did not need the
course. See what has happened here? My daughter, who is twelve
years old, when she is ready to start her online baby store will
speak as an expert. When she writes her own articles people will
know she has the knowledge to impart to others.

When it comes to violence in the media we as parents must become
creative in our efforts to stop our children from taking this
brutality into their minds. Only the parents can protect their
children and I know that many of you share the same concerns
with violence in the media. I wish you all the best in keeping
media violence away from your children.

About the Author

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