by Ganelle Davis

Created on: October 02, 2009   Last Updated: October 06, 2009

What images have you already placed in your children's heads? Do they already have unrealistic images of family life? Do they venture outside of your home? Are books and other types of stimuli offered your children? It would depend upon how you answered these questions. Television is entertainment; even the news in all of it's graphic and horrific detail is designed to be entertaining.

A balance for our children is what we teach them and what we offer them in the form of entertainment. When I was growing up, my companion and my babysitter was the T.V. I developed into a very sociable person with a love of books. My imagination was sparked as I watched the antics of Bewitched and I Dream of Genie. It is true, the images of today are much more explicit. Use this opportunity as a teaching moment. Don't negate your parental responsibilities. The T.V. may even be a learning tool. So many words are spoken, that children need to know exactly what those words mean.

I was encouraged to pick up a book and read every day. A variety of publications covered our coffee table. Those images on the magazine confused me, they did not look like me or my family and the Cleavers on T.V. were nice. I didn't know anyone with the character, "Leave it to Beaver" possessed.

It was then, my grandmother explained to me that these characters on T.V. were fictional. "Those are people pretending," she said to me. "Are they pretending to be a family?" It's all make -believe," she said to me. I sat and pondered this new information. I continued to watch my favorite shows and comment on what I had seen to her. It opened the door for conversation with her. That was enjoyable to me.

T.V. offers images that need to be explained and deciphered. So many times, parents don't have the time to monitor everything their child watches. However, there is a world outside of your home, and to deny them T.V. could be classified as cruel and unusual, outside what is considered "normal". Processing all of this information, some of it true, some not true, is the challenge we parents have to face. Sometimes the media affronts my sensibilities and makes me wonder, "How can they put that on T.V.?" The answer is so transparent, it's perplexing. How do we get people to watch? Challenge their sensibilities.

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