Only Parents Can Stop the Violence Essay -- Media Television TV Essays

Only Parents Can Stop the Violence In today’s society there is a debate going on about whether or not violence has an effect on young children and teenagers. On one hand there are people saying that violence on television has no effect on children. On the other hand it is very easy to prove that television violence has a direct effect on children. There are many studies that show how obvious the impact of television is on the way children act. Children and teens watch a lot of television from their young years until they graduate high school. One study shows that kids will watch 18,000 hours of television by the time they graduate high school(Kalin). This is 5,000 more hours than they spend at school. So the impact that television has is very great, considering how much time kids spend watching it. It is easy to see how kids are influenced by violent television shows because even at an early age they are mimicking violence. Carla Kalin observed her kindergartners acting out violence on each other in her first year of teaching. One kid from another class shot his younger brother in the stomach three times. The next year a first grader was suspended for bringing a knife to school and using it to threaten children on the playground(Kalin). After researching what was causing these youngsters to act so violently, Ms. Kalin came to the conclusion that television programs served as a springboard for violent and aggres sive behavior(Kalin). This is very understandable considering how many violent television shows are airing during the times that children watch TV. â€Å"Approximately ninety percent of the time, children watch programs which are not specifically designed for them at all†(Kalin). Ms. Kalin decided... ... and more intense, but it is up to the parent to monitor what their child is watching. I do agree that violent television shows promote violence in kids, but I also think that parents are responsible for their children’s actions. Parents can take advantage of things like the V-chip to control what their kids are watching. If parents would step up and simply take responsibility for their kids, then I believe that the violence that is happening today would decrease dramatically. Works Cited Children and TV Violence. 23, February 2000. Kalin, Carla. Television, Violence, and Children. 15, February 2000. Banta, Mary Ann. The V-Chip Story. 17, February 2000.