by Casey-Leigh Hethers

Created on: February 14, 2009   Last Updated: November 16, 2009

To ban television altogether would be extreme. Even the trashiest of television programming can have some benefits. One benefit could be the opening of a debate through which you can reason with your child in a healthy manner. As this is for the parents' consideration to better raise their children, I offer the following points to the parents of teenagers: encourage family time and encourage debates over the tv you - and they - watch. It might not always be all that entertaining for you but take an interest in what they will watch; whether it would be with or without your approval. This way, you can talk about it from an educated position rather than not understanding the key element(s) of the show and failing miserably in any discussion you raise about it.

Introduce them to the shows you'd want them to watch - you never know, if they watch it on a "family night", without just being told by you (the parent, the authority voice, the one they'd choose to disobey whenever possible) that they have to watch a certain show, they might even watch it at other times. There's a great deal of television shows (and music, for that matter), that I grew into loving as a child/pre-teen just because they were on in the background. Coincidences have more of an impact than forced meetings; the same can work for quality television versus trashy shows - don't force your child/teen to watch what you tell them, hope they grow to like them with a bit of gentle encouragement.

Open yourself up to what they watch, a number of teen-orientated shows have a wider-audience range through their core values. Plus, in high schools, television is a great source of gossip and a way of inclusion - let your child watch these shows, if only to keep up with the conversations everyone else is bound to have in school the next day. High school is a hard enough time, with physical, emotional and hormonal changes that rage at loose. The least you can do is to leave your teenage capable of standing on an equal footing gossiping about the latest updates in popular television shows than to refuse to let them watch it (and like any average teenager, there's a good chance they'll try to defy you in some way).

Don't shelter your child from the world at large. The only thing it manages to do is leave them naive and vulnerable. If the threat of television is a worry to any parent, the most important tactic from your artillery of parenting skills to remember is communication: talk to your teenager, as difficult as this may be. If they have questions, answer them as best you can; if you can't answer the question, introduce your child to someone who can. Television isn't necessary the evil of the world but it's shortfallings can include misrepresentation or lack of information - the gaps from which you should be willing and ready to fill in for your child's greater benefit.

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