Deciding Which Televison Shows are Appropriate for Children

As a parent I am sure that you are very concerned about what your children watch on television. You should also be aware that just because it may be a children’s program it still may not be appropriate for your children. Society should not be raising your children. For example some parents think that Sesame Street is great but do not like Barney. It also depends greatly on your child’s age. If they are very young you will want to make sure they stay away from the more mature cartoons.

Remember not all cartoons are for children. There are some cartoons that are just for adults. It seems that the majority of cartoons are getting worse not better. Some parents even prefer that their children only watch educational cartoons. This way they are not just letting their brains rot away. Other parents are bothered by the idea of grown men running around dancing with little kids. Although some parents may feel this is perfectly OK. But because of the society that we currently live in most parents are very suspicious of any male that wants to be around young children.

When it comes to cartoons with adult themes you may actually have to sit down and watch them in order to determine if they are appropriate for them or not. For example if you think about the cartoon “Sponge bob Square Pants” a lot of the jokes that are made on that particular cartoon may seem to be a little more for adults or mature audiences. If you really take the time to think about it, many of the cartoons that are on children’s programming have very adult jokes in them. Then there are the cartoons that are just plain dumb and make no sense at all.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has some of the following television guidelines. TV producers must carefully consider how any of the violence that is shown would effect the viewers watching them. You will be surprised at how much violence in our society originates from these shows that our children are watching. Cartoons present fanciful situations, but does that really make the danger factor minimal? Of course many parents feel that the majority of these children programs are for their child’s amusement and nothing more. But a lot of these cartoons do have a lasting impression on your children. Just think about it for a minute. If your child is watching a show like Sesame Street or Blues Clues they will usually remember what they see and learn something, which in these cases is a good thing. But when they are watching more mature or even violent cartoons they are learning something there as well.

Of course allowing them to watch anything unsupervised is a danger, because you never know what can pop up on the screen. If your child is of preschool age then they are more likely to imitate the violent actions that they watch. Then when they are older about five or six they will begin to act on these aggressive feelings that they have already learned. Did you know that broadcasters even admit the possibility that over a extended period of time, viewing the portrayal of violence or mature content may have a desensitizing effect on your children. The wise course for parents to take is to view the program with your children and it may be better to choose an educational program rather than a silly one that will just keep your child occupied