I've been thinking about the discussion we had in class on Wednesday for a while now. A lot of things were brought up that provoked much thought from the entire class. We talked about the different things that influence our children today, and how it compares to the influences of twenty years ago. I have to say, I was somewhat surprised that the media has the largest influence on today's children. I guess I was still hopeful that it would be peers, or family, as it was in the eighties. But it's fairly obvious that the media culture has had much effect on today's generation of children. When we talked about the media and its teaching value vs. entertainment value, it was suggested that maybe its ok for our kids to listen to explicit songs, or watch violent tv as long as they are just doing it for entertainment, and they know that the things being depicted are not acceptable. But, how can we deny that some of these children are unable to draw the line between fiction, and reality? Was it the influence of one preteen boy's parents that made him bring a gun to school and kill his openly gay classmate during class? I don't think so. And when children are watching programs that involve sexual promiscuity and "sleeping around", and then subsequently running their own prostitution ring, can we still say that the media is for entertainment purposes only. Do we really believe that children have some sort of filter in their brains that only allows them to take in the socially acceptable information? We can tell children over and over about the dangers of violence, drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. but when our messages get mixed in with the messages that they constantly receive from the media, which ones are remembered?
1 comment:
Abby,
I totally agree with you on this one. I think I'm glad that I don't have to think about being a parent right now! Although, it'll probably only get worse by the time we get to that point... however, I get what you are saying. There is only so much we can do as parents to keep our kids away from this bad media exposure. Kids are going to see it sometime, no matter how hard we protect them from it. I think the end question of your blog posed a very good question, how much is anything we tell them going to affect them, or vice versa on the other side of the issue. I think as parents we need to just set the values on the child and hope that they will use the good head they have on their shoulders to be the judge of what is right and wrong for them. There is only so much we can do as parents and I think that's a good start, just by engraving the basic jist into their minds, so that they can take it from there. Trusting in your kid is also important I feel, trusting that they will make the right choices eventually as well. Great point you brought up :)
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