Children see violent acts on television and make an attempt to process it, and in doing so, their innocence is lost. According to Dr. David Elkind, president emeritus, National Association for the Education of Young Children, “Television forces children to accommodate a great deal and inhibits the assimilation of material. Consequently, the television child knows a great deal more than he or she can ever understand. This discrepancy between how much information children have and what they can process is the major stress of television.” (160) Children

Teach children alternatives to violent behavior. Emphasize proper communication skills, mediation, and patience. Showing children how to act in a nonviolent manner is important because children learn from their role models. At a very young age, the parents are the primary sources for learning. Children imitate what they see and hear, and will respond positively when they witness positive behavior from their role models.

A study conducted on the effect of television violence on young children’s moral reasoning concluded that children judged justified violence as right or in the middle. (Medved 246) This is explained by the abundance of fantasy violence in children’s programming. A common theme in Saturday morning cartoons revolves around a hero and a villain. The hero generally captures or eliminates the villain by using forceful, violent tactics. Children witness the villain, who is judged to be evil, being punished forcefully by the hero, who is perceived to represent justice. By watching the “good guy” beat up the ‘bad guy’, children distinguish this type of violence as positive behavior. The moral reasoning study argues that “young children are more apt to focus on the rules that are provided by authority figures, the outcome that an act has for the perpetrator, and the presence or absence of punishment resulting from the act.” (Krcmar 608)

Two gang members, Sidewinder and Bopete, provide a strong example of the impact of television violence on today’s youth with a conversation discussing guns and bullets based on knowledge of a television program.

The media, specifically television, has become more and more violent, in not all too subtle ways, exposing many children to behaviors not appropriate to a young audience. Remember “the Menendez brothers, who ruthlessly shot their parents as they ate ice cream and watched TV in their family room, planted in children’s minds the worst possibility -- that a parent could die violently at the hands of a child.” (Medved, et. al. 243) Seeing the violence, hearing about it, watching news reports about violent acts committed by real people, especially other children, affects the viewer negatively. Children can not relate to what they see when they are so young, making the act of watching violent television extremely questionable. Children should not know about murder and rape; however according to Gloria Tristani, Commissioner for the Federal Communications Commission, by the time they finish elementary school, children have witnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence. (Tristani website) Children should not be allowed to view such behavior as they are far too young to comprehend the severity of what they see.

“’Hey, remember that movie we saw on TV? Where the guy shot the lamppost and made a big ole hole? Well, I wanna get me one of them.’

Some topics in this essay:
Boom’” Medved, United Benton, World Report, Communications Commission, Education Children, , Sidewinder Bopete, Pennsylvania University, Telecommunications Act, violent acts, children watch, et al, violence television, violent behavior, television violence, David Elkind, teach children, medved et al, medved et, children watch television, tristani website, preventing children, violent acts television, control children watch, based rating content,