Empowering parents
Our primary aim is to empower parents to manage television use. This
is not about being a "good" or "bad" parent, but
rather to look squarely at the fact that the entertainment industry
spends billions of dollars figuring out how to manipulate children to
watch hours and hours of television and buy things. This manipulation
dis-empowers parents.
Many parents are
unaware of how profoundly television use alters their children and their
experience of being a family. Some parents are mildly uncomfortable
about their use of television. Other parents simply allow it and never
restrict it.
The Facts
The facts are that, on average, children watch television almost 40
hours per week. For 9-14 year olds, this is as much time as all their
discretionary activities together. In one year, the average child is
likely to see 40,000 advertisements. One half of children between the
ages of 6-17 have televisions in their bedroom. The cumulative effects
are destructive and pervasive. Scientific research has proven that television
is responsible for shortened attention spans, poor reading skills, impoverished
brain development, childhood obesity, low task perseverance and heightened
aggression. The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated that doctors
should urge a TV cutback as vigorously as they ask patients to stop
smoking.
A different set
of consequences also exist, less testable and measurable, but real and
with consequences that include senseless violence on our streets. Television
changes the way children are raised, their character formation, their
self-esteem, their self-knowledge, their moral development and their
sense of community. This is an issue for everyone, parent or not.
What we do works
Every attendee at our workshops leaves committed to reducing television
use in their homes. The parents who come to our workshops develop their
own insights about television empowering them to choose for themselves
how television will be used in their homes. Our newsletter Beyond TV
reinforces this commitment, suggests alternatives and helps parents
know that they are not alone in dealing with this issue.
Children have never
been as badly off as they are today, according to a study published
by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Angry, alienated,
sad, depressed, asocial, uncommunicative, the generation growing up
is having a rough time. The pressures are many. Television use contributes
to these pressures and exacerbates them.
Parents love their
children and want them to have as good a life as possible. By providing
parents with education about alternatives to television use, we will
improve their children's prospects for fulfilling lives, while at the
same time reducing so many of our society's ills: violence, community
disintegration, unsafe schools, stress, alienation and distrust of government
to name a few.
Our approach is
not a quick fix. It is a long-term effort of raising awareness, educating
individuals and changing behavior.
Bibliography
Robert
Putnam, "The Strange Disappearance of Civic America." The
American Prospect, 1996.
Michael
F. Jacobson and Laurie Ann Mazur, Marketing Madness. Westview
Press 1995 p.22
Marilyn
Gardner, "TV's Values: Bart's Bad Influence." The Christian
Science Monitor, Feb. 28, 1995
See
Jane Healy, Endangered Minds: Why Our Children Can't Think. Simon
and Schuster, 1990
Brandon
S. Centerwall, "Television and Violent Crime," in The Public
Interest, Spring 1993
J.
Van, "TV Viewing Linked to Childhood Obesity, Violence." Chicago
Tribune, April 17, 1990
Daniel
Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, 1995
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