by Whitney Levon

Created on: September 29, 2009

Television is not an inherently bad thing, and it is certainly not so bad that we should find the need to deprive our children of it completely. There is plenty of family-friendly entertainment as well as educational programming on t.v. Admittedly, there is also a lot of garbage out there that we should shield our children from, but completely taking television out of their lives would put them at a disadvantage with their peers.

The debate over television for children did not stem from the program format of PBS or The Disney Channel, so where does the problem lie with most parents? The age-old answer to that is that there is too much sex and violence on t.v. The people who agree with that statement are correct, there is way too much inappropriate content on television that young ones should not be exposed to. The question then becomes, how can we protect our children without cutting out television completely?

There are a few ways to handle dealing with your children and inappropriate t.v. content. You can activate the parental controls on your television set. You can monitor your child's viewing habits, allowing them only to watch in a room that is in a common area of the house. You can also watch programs with them to explain why the behavior or language on a particular show is not something that they should mimic. It is also a good idea to limit how much television they watch in a day. You can set some ground rules, like t.v. is only for after all homework and chores are done. Using quality shows that you approve and the kids like as a reward for a job well done can enhance the viewing experience for them and you.

By preventing your children from watching television completely, you are putting them at an educational disadvantage. Watching the news helps kids understand current events, which often times are used as curriculum in schools. There are also numerous educational programs on television every day that your children might find entertaining, thus adding to their wealth of knowledge. You also need to consider that your children will not gain knowledge of pop-culture phenomena that their peers may talk about in school. While this may seem trivial, it is an important way that children gain acceptance in their school groups.

Television does indeed put a lot of trash out into the world, and much of it is not suitable for children. The entire MTV network comes to mind, and programming such as The Real World has no place in a child's life. Reality t.v. in general has changed the way many people behave and perceive the world around them. It is not hard to see why some parents feel that their kids might be better off without it. There are, however, many benefits to allowing your kids a little time in front of the television, and with a little hard work on your part, they won't see anything that will traumatize them.

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