Psychology Parents or the Media - Who to blame?

Kids are getting more aggressive and more sexual at far younger ages these days to the point where its extremely disturbing. Examples include The Rainbow Game (if you don't know, you probably don't want to), numerous incidents where a kid (supposedly) is influenced by GTA3, and so on.

So who is to blame? The Media, or the Parents?

My blame lays almost entirely on the parents. Why? Because parents should be clamping down and both making sure they know what their kids are watching, listening and playing (and taking appropriate action if it is unsuitable), and they should also be talking more to their kids.

I mean lets face it. GTA3 has a rating of M (for Mature). In a lot of places it's impossible to buy that game if you are under 18!!!

While you obviously can't keep your kids from everything, making sure they know whats really "right" can go a long way. I grew up watching grown up movies, playing violent video games, and hearing some of the same music as my peers, and I certainly didn't end up a drug addicted murderer who lost his virginity at 12. Why? Because my parents took a little time to know what I was doing and talk to me about things.

 

I agree that most of the fault lies in the parents. My parents taught me good values as far back as I can remember and we still constently talk about everything. (I know, I know, I shame teenagers everywhere, but hey, they really do know more then I do.) However, I do not feel that parents should be responsible for everything their children do. I could very easily chose to watch pornographic movies, engage in immoral activities, or use illegal drugs (not that I would). If a person wants to do something, they'll find a way to it, regardless of what they where taught. However this is assuming they have been taught what is considered right. If parents have not talked to their children about sex, then all blame should fall on them if their children engaged in this activity. Schools should not have to have sex-ed classes, this should be discussed at home. My parents and I do not talk about "safe-sex", we talk about abstinence and we have talked about this a lot. They also teach by their example, they have been happily, and faithfully, marriaged for almost twenty years.

 

Yeah, but in the real world not everyone is going to practice abstinence.

Know what?

My parents certainly didn't, and they have been married and faithful for -over- twenty years.

And schools should have sex ed courses so there's a genuine lack of bias on the subject, and so a kid genuinely knows how to put a condom on correctly.

 

Interesting, our sex ed classes never told us how to put on a condom correctly. I understand not everyone in the world will practice abstinence, I'm just explaining my own upbringing. I hope I didn't give you the wrong impression, I have nothing against people who do not share my views, we are all intitled to our own opinions and standpoints.

 

See the big problem with relying on home schooling for sex ed is that there will inevitably be some crazy fundies who tell their kids that sex is 100% pure evil unless done in a reproductive manner and that the kids will burn eternally if they are even slightly turned on somehow. And there will be super-hippies who try to endorse free love without accounting for the fact that STDs are rather... nasty. Hence a centrist view is needed.

 

I think it's a combination of the two, really. Sure, the old line is that parents need to control what their kids are exposed to, but that doesn't totally fly with me. You'd have to be amish to keep your pre-teen girls from ever seeing a picture of Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, and their messages are basically all sex all the time. We live in a time where both parents need to work in order to keep their family afloat and simply can't monitor their kids' activities 24/7. There's absolutely no way for parents to monitor what their kids see at school when talking to friends, for example.

Plus, we can't assume that the kids themselves are purely innocent beings just waiting to be corrupted. I and I'm sure most other boys have lied to their parents in order to get access to violent entertainment. In most movie theatres (In America, anyway), it's incredibly easy for kids to watch R-rated movies. A bunch of 12 year-old boys could tell their parents that they're going to see Finding Nemo and go see Terminator 3 instead. How would the parents know? You can't expect the parents to hold their childrens' hands through every event of their lives until they turn 18 - It sounds good in theory, but it just doesn't work that way.

That's not to say that they're *not* responsible; far from it. I just think it's unfair to say that this MTV-drenched media doesn't have the least bit of responsibility. When the average kid witnesses an average of 10,000 murders, rapes and aggravated assaults a year(http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2002/04/27/jv27.htm), you know that the media, at the very least, certainly isn't *helping* the situation.

 

Never mind home schooling on Sex ed... bloody near enough told me that crap ~in~ school... but then they had a rethink during my school'age & decided to let two crazy ladies in & tell us that ~any~ birth control is wrong followed by a nice slide show of abortions (If anything they taught me not to listen to ladies quite thouroghly into menopause)... damn catholic-based schools. So yeah i agree with you on the centrist bit.

 

I think that responsibility ultimately falls to the parents to teach good values - or at the very least, common sense. With a good grounding in logic and healthy self-esteem, most kids will make more good choices than bad ones in life. Home environment probably plays a larger role in determining how a child will live their life than anything else - although the child's individual personality also plays a factor.

I don't believe for a minute that you can blame society's problems on the media. The media itself is an expression of society's views and interests. It's the parents' responsibility to give their kids the groundwork to seperate what's appropriate behavior and what isn't, and to talk to their children about what they're being exposed to. If parents do their job, even if they can't keep their kids from sneaking into the occasional R-rated movie or trying a beer at a party, their kids most likely won't take that into full-blown violent tendencies and substance abuse.

Kids are interested in things they're not supposed to see, hear, think, do, or have. Whether it's pornography or drugs, or a group of peers that their parents don't like - children, and teens especially, want to do things that test their limits. I think some parents actually aggravate the problem by being too involved - making their kids feel stifled and overprotected.

But you can't blame the media for being overly violent or immoral (well, you can, but it's people who make it that way in the first place). The fact is, a child who plays a videogame and becomes violent because of it probably already has either an emotional/mental problem, a bad home life with little emotional support, or some sort of problem distinguishing reality from fantasy. Your average person doesn't watch a horror movie about a murderer and then want to sneak into college dorms and hack at girls with meat cleavers.

Parents have an important duty to make sure their kids aren't being unnecessarily exposed to things they can't handle - and if they can't prevent the exposure, they need to make an effort to help their children be responsible, confident, strong individuals. That's not going to work every time - children really aren't a blank slate, every personality is different and reacts to guidance in different ways. But it basically comes down to this: remove the media's influence, you'd still get kids with social problems, aggression, and substance abuse. Remove all parental influence... and I gaurantee there would be a LOT more problems. It's the parents who make the difference.

 

Well, I saw Termintor 2 before I was ten. I played many video games, most of which involved killing people (sometimes individually, sometimes en masse if I happened to be shooting down capital ships). I saw plenty of other death and violence too, to the point where I'd be hard pressed to provide a list of it all. But I'm certainly not going to shoot someone up. Why? Because my parents taught me a little sense, duh.

 

I believe it's the parents' fault, because parents are suppose to be setting the rules, and taking responsibility for their children, and they just won't do it, and I think that's really sad. Instead of using discipline correctly, they just use it to shut the kids up, rather than using it to teach right from wrong. Parents really need to get their act together, because there's no telling what will happen to their children, and how they will treat other children.


Yet I guess the media could also have a blame in it too. I mean, we've got these pop stars going on stage and flashing themsleves in front of little girls. They really need to realize that there are children who love them, and that they are SINGERS NOT STRIPPERS! :dizzy:

 

Some parents need to stop using TV as a babysitter. TV networks should not have to be responsible for someone elses child. It's the parents job to teach their kids right from wrong.

 

That's true. While the media does have a role in shaping culture - glorifying sex, junk food, and violence in ways it never before has - the simple solution to that is for parents to moderate what's available to their kids.

Today's youth spends way too much time being sedentary. Sitting in front of the TV and watching drivel like Spongebob Squarepants is neither mentally stimulating nor physically healthy. Sure, there's nothing wrong with it for short periods, but a lot of parents use TV as a constant diversion from anything that might require their supervision. Parents are getting lazy - either that, or they're working too hard and don't have time for their kids (in which case I ask - what the HELL did they go and have children for?).

Perfect example: My elder sister has a son in his early teens, who has various mental disorders which result in his functioning at an emotional level about half his physical age. He's not stupid or "retarded" - but his judgement and morality are lacking, and he has a very short fuse, because he hasn't been taught the importance of moderating himself, and he has no routine or sense of control. He's dangerous. But most of that is because he's allowed to sit around in front of the TV all day, being ignored by his mom, until his self esteem is shot, he's bored, he wants attention that he isn't getting... And he's not being moderated in what he watches, nor having any of it explained to him. It's not the media that's created the problems he has, and they don't stem entirely from his ADHD, hyperactivity, and obsessive-compulsive disorders either. It's the parents who show their kids how to interact and cope. Personally, I'm afraid of how he'll turn out in another five years.

 

I think parents should be more responsible. If they do use the tele as a babysitter they should turn to a CBC/PBS thing. I also thing the media is a lil bit to blame, they should try to keep it clean. Children should not be able to turn on the tele and see.. well more.

 

I agree think that it is the responsabilty of the parents to look after there children. The parents should take an interest in the child and moniter what they do, and place limits on what the child can and can't do. Though i know that this will incurage some children to break some of these rules, it still sets a boundry of what the child may or may not do.
But this approach should not be pushed to far, otherwise the child will feel smothered and will fell like they have very little freedom which can be upseting.
I also think that in some cases the parent should give the chld a choice so that they maybe able to make they're own mistakes and learn from them.
I think that most children grow up to be like they're parents and they copy them by doing things they do. This is especally true of crime families were the kids of drug dealers and such grow up following in they're parents footsteps.
Media also has a part to blame in this with singers that are more like strippers, but i think that it is still up to the parent to moderate what the child can watch and what they can't.

 

Exactly. If everything on TV was child-friendly, we'd lose a lot of good series and movies (CSI, serious movies that have to do with war and crime, etc). Also, most networks save their gory and/or heavily sexual material until the evening - not mornings before school or afternoons when kids are just getting home - so they do to some extent shield kids from that content. It's up to the parents to do the rest.

 

I agree I think it is the parents who are the trouble of all this I am 11 but I do not think like my friends yes I have seen terminator 2 aswell I saw it at the age of 5 but it did not effect me. I play violent video games but it does not affect me. My parents are religious people they teach me not to kill or anything .

I have people at school who are violent and think of sex but i try to aviod that

 

Mostly perants are to blame because they should know what walking thought their front doors. not to mention keeping an eye on their children. which some parents don't do. :sad:

 

There two pages of rants here that i havent read so i apologise if im repeating something that has already been said :sweat2:

I Blame society as a whole (i know that sounds cliche) First of all you have a society where morals are good and right, Then some form of the media (movies possibly) comes along and tries to create an element of shock in what they are doing (e.g. alfred hitchcocks Psycho) This grabs people and pulls them in, but nether the less they are not going to abandon their morals based on one event. However as time goes by more and more events like this take place within the media (this can be seen right now in the news, any slight disturbance is reported as a major terrorist event)

as you move to the next generation of people they are subjected to this from birth, and their parents only do half as much moral correction as their parents because they've grown accoustomed to the media response.

As you can see this process is capable of repeating untill nobody cares if steve two streets away kills his wife because they've been prepared for it all their lives by a media who has desensitized us through over exposure, and parents who've decided to let tv raise their kids.

It's this kind of attitude that leads to gang culture "the world wont look out for you but we will" further fuelling the media to over exagerate any kind of scuffle into a gang war.

This cycle fuels itself once it has started but there is another factor to consider, We live in a world of propaganda, reports of anti war protests have been doctored, Certain reports said that one particular protest was minor, an eyewitness said that there were around 15000 poeple there (this report was in a tabloid newspaper so again this cant be trusted but someone in the media is lying to us somewhere along the line

Unfortunately this is being written as 2.30 in the morning and i havent had any coffee at all today :anger2: so what i have said may sound confused feel free to point this out to me and ill try to make amends good night friends

 

Okay.. first, and foremost... Never... EVER... try to use big words again, capisce?

Second of all... okay... so, you're saying all the media and such is to blame for all these crimes and Steve killing his wife (who attacked him with a butcher knife first, it was self-defense, man)... okay... so, riddle me this...

Explain violence in the middle ages.. in the Renessaince(sp).. Hell, if it all really occurred the BC era or when Jesus was born, all the violence then. Are you trying to tell me the idea of nailing someone to two 2x4s came from a violent movie or from watching the news?

 

I believe it's Society's fault. When i was a kid (reffering to kindergarten thru 3) my biological father was drunk, druggie, and he smoked cigarrettes all the time and was most likely passed out drunk... my mom... she and him would fight then she go off to work. come home fight, go to work. We'd get meals and stuff cuz i learned how to cook and my bio father didn't completely lose his mind when he was drunk... but none of us 4 kids so far (i'm the oldest at 17) have gotten into drug, alchool, or sex problems and it's not because our parents talked to us. for us (all except the sex) we saw how it destroyed our family and granted my mom divorced him and married my step dad it still affected us. It really affected me cuz i had to take care of everyone b/c no one else would. "Pablo"(pretending this is my bro that's a yr. younger than me) just wanted to take care of his turtles. "Molly"(my sis who's 3yrs younger) was still kind of a baby. and "pbj" my youngest bro. was a baby. all of us grew up with what was going on and granted my stepdad moved us out of a really bad place and into a better one we still had grown up in that area where drugs were sold right outside my house and we fell to sleep with gunshots going off at night and police and all those other sirens going on but none of us turned to that stuff. ..... i think i went off topic.... oh yea i know where i was going with this... it depends on the kids... my bros and sis don't have any tolerance for that stuff, granted pablo* has a bit of a violent temper but than again he's going through a phase and startling enough it was when he started to listen to the music his friends were listening to that he got it... hmm that's odd... lives in an enviroment where this is that kind of stuff and nothing effects him but bring in friends and society and he's got a temper... hmm.. connect the dots here.