People often complain about how things ranging from television, to video games, to Harry Potter are making children violent and otherwise corrupting them. They endlessly mention things like “Doom” and “Grand Theft Auto” as morally reprehensible and try to get them banned or censored. For years, the media has attracted ceaseless criticisms and attacks, claiming that watching, reading, or playing various forms of media will make a kid violent or otherwise morally corrupt.
I disagree. The problem is not with the media, but with the parents. The ultimate level of responsibility for how a child turns out goes down to the parents who raised the kid. The modern family is disintegrating, with both parents working and paying minimal attention to their children. This, combined with actions such as a reluctance to punish a child for infractions, is definitely going to cause problems.
But no one likes to feel bad about himself or herself, so these parents project these problems onto convenient scapegoats like TV, books, and video games. This in turn causes the real problem to be ignored and creates a vicious cycle of denial that people are all too willing to buy into. This cycle causes people to overreact to things in the media, and we see hysteria over things that would often be best settled with a far less zealous reaction.
For example, people were afraid that Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster was a bad role model and would promote obesity, thus causing the show to add a new song about how cookies were a “sometimes food.” This could have been much more simply solved by simply having the Cookie Monster get stomach aches after his eating binges. This would add a visible consequence to overeating unhealthy foods and probably would have been sufficient.
Ultimately, the best way to get kids on the right path is to actually be a parent to them, show interest in their lives, ask them questions, and encourage them to think for themselves. If necessary, punish them for bad behavior. It’s just common sense.
Please, parents, take my advice. Be there for your kids.