Children's Media

Children's media does need some restrictions, and I would like to agree that introducing controversy is an excellent way to spark discussion, but the problem is that the necessary discussion doesn't happen. I can think of hardly any parents (or any adults for that matter) that ever watch TV with their children in order to facilitate a discussion about the controversy. Without that discussion, this somewhat questionable material is doing more harm than good.

It's a very difficult situation because everyone has different ideas about what is appropriate for children. Christians with a limited and somewhat selfish position don't help the ultimate goal of refining TV  standards. Instead of fighting against TV and parents trying to shut it out, they need to actively be involved with explaining why certain behaviors shown in the media are wrong according to their personal standards.

Kids are copy-cats. They search for people to admire, and they try to be like them. Last week I saw a young girl "watching" a TV show with her dad. Even though she had no clue what was happening in the scenes, she would laugh along with the laugh track. It was similar in my family—my parents would complain that they didn't like a certain TV show because it influenced our actions, but when they sat down with us and allowed us to count how many times we saw the characters break one of 10 commandments, we were able to talk about it.

Their are problems with media, but the reality is that children aren't going to escape from it (that might even make it worse), and they likely not get the message they really need without parental involvement. The media is putting a hard task on parents, but the parents shouldn't try to cut it all off because media influences social lives of kids—I often felt left out of a group because my family didn't allow video games until I was in 8th grade when we got Wii Sports. Basically, I'm trying to say that it's not the media's fault. Children need to be taught on a more personal level.