Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Parenting & Children Children watching television

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That is child abuse. · · · 

IMHO:
I believe kids age 8 are going on age 18. Language, violence and extremes... no way to stop it...even in your own home.

...and Computers?... Every kid age 8 or maybe even 6, has access to almost anything... Any kid who doesn't know about "incognito" or equivalent, probably doesn't go to a public school.

Sophisticated and ugly, but there... and no way to fix it.

The Sears catalog was the extreme in my day, and nose under the girlie tent at carnivals. Tattered French playing cards and peep tube telescopes.

I believe that unless an eight year old child is super sheltered, he or she knows more about the world than I did at age 18. Am inclined to think that accepting "today" for what it is, without glorifying or demonizing, may be best. Hate the thought of kids having a hidden darkside...

With the right home climate, I believe that dealing with reality... TV... internet... may be better than making believe that it doesn't exist. Open new horizons through interest, and not through denial. My grandkids "know" but are balanced, to know the difference.

my opinion only...

oh yeah... and Yosemite... Was there when the Queen visited back in the early 1980's... Two of her bodyguards were killed in advance of her arrival... drove off the side of a cliff. Yosemite in Winter... back in those days... probably less than two hundred people in the entire park. Totally outrageously beautiful, from any angle.

When I questioned my own kids what they do when visiting their friends, the same answer was given. "We sit around and watch television." Cartoons and sitcoms made up of trying to out-insult the actors that soon became the language of the neighborhood. My kids often chose to stay at my place where the dialog often came from Shakespeare or Chekhov depending what was on the schedule at our theater. We spent 5 weeks doing the Renaissance Faire and had work to do on costumes and general activities. Our Summers were filled with simply searching for beach time where we simply did some picnicking and swimming. My kids could join in or crash at somebody else's television rooms.

Being a costumer, the nude body is where our work began. The key project was to make it fit the role assigned. If anyone wanted to see sex in action, all we had to do was go outside and call "Howard" our rooster.

My kids were not sheltered in any way but directed away from being hypnotized by sex. When I mentioned my swimming pool experience, my daughter said she should be a journalist and record her own opinions of the news.