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Television watching   

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Watching television is an experience shared by the vast majority of children and adults in our world. It is convenient, inexpensive, available, and attractive. Television can be enormously entertaining for children. They can watch people or characters in various situations and learn a great deal about life. In fact, it is estimated that children learn more from television than from relationships or school. Television can be a useful tool for parents; it can be used for distraction, substitution, and recreation. It can fill the void between stimulation children need and the energy and time a parent has. Unfortunately, the TV has become a substitute for interacting with your child and is used in some families as a "baby sitter".

Television is only a technical instrument that can be used appropriately to enhance the enjoyment of life or can be used inappropriately as a substitution for human relationships and interactions and personal growth and development. Children learn the most from what they see and do the most. The important question for parents is, "Are my children learning the values, beliefs, skills, and behaviors that I want them to learn, from television?" Parents and professionals agree that while television is a marvelous source of entertainment and education, it is also an underestimated source of demonstrated intolerance, aggression, violence, and development of other inappropriate values, beliefs, and behaviors. It is sad commentary to know that by the time a child graduates from high school he will have spent more hours in front of the TV set than he will have spent in class. Parents must be concerned about what the television is teaching their children and how it affects their behavior.

Some of the factors that encourage the child's learning and use of behaviors observed on television are:
1. Age. Young children recognize and learn observed behaviors though they do not understand or recognize motives or consequences.
2. Imitation/modeling. Children identify with characters or situations portrayed on television and are likely to imitate the behaviors of familiar characters and situations. Be aware of the content of shows before allowing your child to watch them.3. Testing boundaries. Children are attracted to and likely to test behaviors that they have seen on television that were rewarded or not punished. They may be confused by the differences in the behavior limits set and enforced at home and those demonstrated on television.
4. Acceptability of behaviors. Children assume that behaviors observed on television are appropriate and acceptable. They will imitate these behaviors in similar situations. Violence seems an acceptable behavior when observed dozens of times each day on television, especially when it seems to result in the desired outcome without punishment or negative results.

Some recommended guidelines for establishing appropriate television viewing by children are:
1. Make a chart of your children's daily activities, including school, homework, play time, meal times, television watching, video games, etc. Estimate the amount of time your children are involved in each activity.
2. Make a list of the skills, values, beliefs, and behaviors your children will experience and learn from each activity.
3. Determine your desired priorities of these skills for your children.
4. Determine which activities are most likely to help your children learn these skills.
5. Make a list of alternative activities (reading a book, working on a hobby, riding a bike, gardening) that may be beneficial for your children.
6. Create a balanced schedule of activities that will interest, entertain, educate, and model appropriate behaviors and skills for your children.
7. Allow your children to choose which television programs they will watch (with your approval) each day based on the amount of time you have scheduled. Usually school age children should have very limited TV if any on school nights. 8. Encourage your children to participate in one alternative activity each day before watching television.
9. Encourage frequent interactions with friends and family.
10. Watch television with your children.
11. Turn off the television after the chosen program is over.
12. Demonstrate the behaviors you expect or desire for your children. Invite them to be involved in some of your activities.
13. Whenever possible make television the least important of all the family activities. Limit total viewing time to as few minutes as possible. Children will survive easily without the television.

Entertainment is now under scrutiny for possibly contributing to several acts of gun violence perpetrated by children and adolescents at school. There is great concern that both television and theater are providing entertainment content with extreme violence, lack of common moral standards and other detrimental factors that is being viewed by children from toddler age up through adolescence and are influencing their perception of the world and their behavior towards other. Parents should be aware of what their children are viewing and exert reasonable control over it.

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