Children And Television Essay, Research Paper

I do not know how to tell you this in a relaxed manor, but I am serial killer. I grew up watching just about every horror flick known to mankind and with the influences of television, as most some people think, I should very well be slashing screaming girls and awaiting my next victim. Now I think you have all realized that I am not a merciless killer on the loose, but that my intentions are to expand on how television greatly influences our children compared to our everyday lives.

I was only about six or seven when I saw my first gore delight movie. The shock to some people is that it was not my sneak a peek tactics that got me to see this movie, but rather my own babysitter. She rented these movies as frequently as she could and gave us a great liking to them. She taught us not only to root for the killer, but also to laugh at the helpless victim as he or she was being brutally slain. My life was a reality and these movies were only a fiction.

Now I am the first to say that I was not the most mentally healthy child, but I would have never hurt a person because of the values I was raised. I did get into a lot of trouble with my friends, but I think it was more letting out my aggressions than anything. I did not have the best grades and did not have the perfect behavior, but I was raised with a good logic behind it that I think can help prevent further kids being raised into the violence of television which many seem to blame

The first problem with many children is their awareness to the world. I had a particular ignorance to the world around me as a child, as far as not knowing the cruelties of the real world around me. This helped me in separating a very definitive line between my life, reality, and fiction. Many kids today are not raised with this ignorance. In fact, they can find the violence and corruption everyday in their homes. From their grandparent’s racial remarks to their fathers getting in fights with their tee-ball coach, it happens every day and kids are there to see it. This makes it very easy for the to jump from television into their world seem like a small step beyond. The influence of a parent and the parent’s out take on life is a big factor on the outcome of a child’s logic. Except a child also seems to intensify their parent’s behavior as well. Which brings me to my next topic.

Parents also seem to have a great misunderstanding in the fact that telling their children the amount of trouble they got into as kids is a good idea. I myself never imagined the trouble my parents got into as kids and in fact did not think it was a part of their vocabulary as kids. This always kept me at a finer line with them. For me to do something that was very bad would really over step my boundaries, thinking that my parents would not even be able to believe that anyone is capable of doing that. When parents do let their children in on this it sends a message to that child that why can’t I do it if my parents did it as well. The best analogy I can think of is you will always have more people doing a 100mph if the speed limit is 75 instead of 55.

If you can remember anything about your teenage years, it would probably be how much you loved things or hated things. As a teenager it seems like emotions are also running at a very high rate in all of us. This causes strong emotions in us towards love and hate. When a child does not know how to release these emotions in a healthy way, it can lead to violence and even self destruction. We need to educate our children on healthy ways of doing this and understand the feeling of these emotions they are going through.

I am not saying that television does not have any affect on our attitude towards life. It is just on the lower spectrum of the pole, especially when it comes to the blame for violence. Television did not create sex and violence nor did it make it so enjoyable to watch. It is as humans, with our animal instincts, that love these things so much. It goes back to reproduce and protect your territory, really the only two values that are implanted in our head before birth. We as a people are the reason why sex and violence are the only things on, because all television really cares about is ratings. Personally I am not even against what they put on television as long as there is a difference in our every day lives, and that is where we need to improve. My art history teacher taught me a very interesting fact. You can always tell the rise, fall, and life in between of an empire by their paintings right before that time, which always seem to predict their fates. Well television is our paintings of today, it is not creating violence, only telling us the path we are headed for.