by Thomas Mackert

Created on: November 25, 2008

There is never going to be a totally safe and mistake free environment to raise a child. If you let your child play outside, they will eventually get hurt. If you let your child go to school, they will hear and see things you as a parent may not agree with. And if you let your children watch television, there is a very good chance that they will watch a show deemed inappropriate or a show wtih no educational value whatsoever.

I agree that television has changed dramatically over the years. Gone are the days of Richie and the Fonz, Andy Griffith, and The Cosbys. These are the days of taking it as far as the censors will let us with shows like Jack-Ass, South Park, and most of MTV's reality shows. However, if you are thinking of raising your children without television, you may as well keep them in the house and home school them too.

The influences in this world today both good and bad, come in all forms. What most people forget though, is that education comes in all forms as well. If your child comes home from school one day and tells you he learned about George Washington or Dr. Martin Luther King or how to write an essay, would this not make you proud? A couple of weeks later that same child comes home and mutters a certain swear word he learned from one of his classmates, are you going to keep that child home from school until they reach full adulthood? Of course your not. You will explain that the use of that word is inappropriate and punish the child so they remember not to use that word again. In other words, you educate them.

There is not a day that goes by that a parent does not worry when they're children go outside to play. It's not one thing in particular that they worry about. Depending on the ages of the children, it could be almost anything. From scraping they're knee to getting in a fight, or even worse scenarios of getting hit by a car or being shot. Realistically, anythings possible. Knowing these dangers no matter how big or small, we must educate our children about these dangers before and all the while that they are growing up. You can't just keep your children home.

I was watching Jeopardy with my fiance and her thirteen-year old son the other night and was answering the questions out loud as I am sure most people do, and my fiances son asked "how do I know so much". I told him that there was three places that I learned most of what I know. They were school, life , and television. He repeated " school, life, and television"? I proceeded to

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