It is past time for Americans to wake up out of their STUPOR SLEEP ! America as we have known it is about over ! The NWO is about to make our CONSTITUTION VOID! I say turn off the TV and Read Your Bible like your life depends on it .....BECAUSE IT DOES !
Today's teachers have a lot more to deal with today than kids chewing bubble gum in class. From anorexia and teen pregnancy, to hyperactive kids who can't sit still, to children who bring guns to school (and sometimes use them), our schools face a plethora of problems. Regardless of arguments over teaching methods, it is hard for a girl to learn when she's starving herself, or a boy to learn because he won't pay attention. What's the answer? Where do we even start?
Maybe… maybe we just go and turn off the TV.
Most of us enjoy a good movie now and then. For those of us who read and study constantly, television is a nice respite. Besides, there are plenty of interesting shows to be found if you know where to look. The existence of television isn't the problem. The problem is that our kids tend to watch way too much, and too much of the wrong things.
Attention Deficit Disorders
Several years ago, Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle published a study linking attention problems in young school children with television exposure earlier in life. The study in the April issue of Pediatrics revealed that children ages 1-3 were put at a higher risk for ADHD and other attention difficulties for every hour-per-day of TV they watched. For each hour watched during ages 1-3, there was a 10 percent higher risk of attention problems by age 7.
Pediatric researcher Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who led the study, said, "We know from national estimates that children watch an average of 2-3 hours of television a day in the 1-3 year old age group and that as many as 30 percent of all children have a television in their bedroom." If that's an average, and some children don't watch TV at all, then that means there are some little ones out there who think that the television is their mother.
During these years when a child's brain is still rapidly developing, television's fast-paced stimulation - even educational programming - wires children's brains to expect life to happen faster than it does. Parents are wise to limit the amount of television their youngest youngsters watch. As Dr. Christakis noted, "Look, people have cooked dinner for thousands of years… without resorting to TV."
According to Common Sense Media, "Out of 68% of TV shows that contain overt sexual content, only 15% discuss risk and responsibility." Nobody on TV ever seems to say, "Sorry, but one in five adults in America has herpes. Are you sure you don't? Stop kissing me, and let's talk about this relationship like wise and responsible adults."
Both boys and girls are also swamped with "perfect body" images. Hollywood's finest women are not pleasantly plump. On average, girls will be hit with a quarter million ads of beautiful, abnormally thin women. It's no wonder we have young teens and even pre-teens with eating disorders. Boys, on the other hand, are taught to strive for a unrealistic physical standards that often can only be reached through the use of steroids.
Violence
According to Common Sense Media, "By the time kids enter middle school, they have seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 more acts of violence on broadcast TV alone."
We cannot expect our children to be exposed to that sort of violence on a regular basis and not be desensitized. TV and movies hammer us with violence, and we watch with relish. Then, we are shocked when two young adults murder a 14-year-old boy simply because they wanted to know what it was like to kill somebody. This past month, 19-year-old Nathaniel Wayne Lee and 22-year-old Troy Smiley were charged with the murder of young Jeffrey Stone, whom they brutally killed for the thrill of it. Too many kids are getting used to too much violence without ever having a sense of the reality of it.
Kids who are already at risk can easily take violent role models as their heroes. Eighteen-year-old Eric Tavulares had watched the movie Natural Born Killers some 10-20 times before he suddenly murdered his childhood sweetheart by strangling her to death while she slept. They were watching the movie once more that night, in fact. They'd turned it off about halfway through and had gone to bed, when Tavulares had an urge to turn and strangle his girlfriend Lauren Aljubouri.
"He stated he does not recall exactly what happened next," the complaint says, "but something caused him to switch mentally and he rolled over on Lauren Aljubouri and he began strangling her."
Likewise, violence in video games has reached new highs. These days it seems there is no limit to how graphic some games can be. Parents need to pay close attention to the amount of violence in the video games available today. These are not Atari "doo doo doo doo" games like Frogger and Pacman, but games with high-quality graphics and in-depth story lines. Be sure to check the ratings of the video games your kids play.
The Answer?
The answer to a lot of these problems may simply be to spend more time together as families. Turn off the television and read books together or put together puzzles. Go outside and build that tree fort or get down to the skate park. Kids know there is a lot more to life than television, and while they might gripe and complain at first, they'll appreciate it later. We'll all appreciate it.
Related Links: • 'Natural Born Killers' Fan Charged With Strangling Girlfriend - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel • Resources - Common Sense Media • Teenage Thrill Killers - CBS • Teen Pregnancy � Does Media Glamorize Teen Pregnancy? - Newsweek • Study Finds Link Between Television Viewing and Attention Problems in Children - Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center
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SAVE A CHILD, SHOOT A TELEVISION - (Print)
"Sit still. Pay attention. Don't kill anybody."
Today's teachers have a lot more to deal with today than kids chewing bubble gum in class. From anorexia and teen pregnancy, to hyperactive kids who can't sit still, to children who bring guns to school (and sometimes use them), our schools face a plethora of problems. Regardless of arguments over teaching methods, it is hard for a girl to learn when she's starving herself, or a boy to learn because he won't pay attention. What's the answer? Where do we even start?
Maybe… maybe we just go and turn off the TV.
Most of us enjoy a good movie now and then. For those of us who read and study constantly, television is a nice respite. Besides, there are plenty of interesting shows to be found if you know where to look. The existence of television isn't the problem. The problem is that our kids tend to watch way too much, and too much of the wrong things.
Attention Deficit Disorders
Several years ago, Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle published a study linking attention problems in young school children with television exposure earlier in life. The study in the April issue of Pediatrics revealed that children ages 1-3 were put at a higher risk for ADHD and other attention difficulties for every hour-per-day of TV they watched. For each hour watched during ages 1-3, there was a 10 percent higher risk of attention problems by age 7.
Pediatric researcher Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who led the study, said, "We know from national estimates that children watch an average of 2-3 hours of television a day in the 1-3 year old age group and that as many as 30 percent of all children have a television in their bedroom." If that's an average, and some children don't watch TV at all, then that means there are some little ones out there who think that the television is their mother.
During these years when a child's brain is still rapidly developing, television's fast-paced stimulation - even educational programming - wires children's brains to expect life to happen faster than it does. Parents are wise to limit the amount of television their youngest youngsters watch. As Dr. Christakis noted, "Look, people have cooked dinner for thousands of years… without resorting to TV."
Unrealistic Romance and Sexuality
It's obvious to anybody who pays attention that sexual activity is treated in a casual fashion in today's television world. The Hollywood plastic version of love and romance has become a cliché.
According to Common Sense Media, "Out of 68% of TV shows that contain overt sexual content, only 15% discuss risk and responsibility." Nobody on TV ever seems to say, "Sorry, but one in five adults in America has herpes. Are you sure you don't? Stop kissing me, and let's talk about this relationship like wise and responsible adults."
Both boys and girls are also swamped with "perfect body" images. Hollywood's finest women are not pleasantly plump. On average, girls will be hit with a quarter million ads of beautiful, abnormally thin women. It's no wonder we have young teens and even pre-teens with eating disorders. Boys, on the other hand, are taught to strive for a unrealistic physical standards that often can only be reached through the use of steroids.
Violence
According to Common Sense Media, "By the time kids enter middle school, they have seen 8,000 murders and 100,000 more acts of violence on broadcast TV alone."
We cannot expect our children to be exposed to that sort of violence on a regular basis and not be desensitized. TV and movies hammer us with violence, and we watch with relish. Then, we are shocked when two young adults murder a 14-year-old boy simply because they wanted to know what it was like to kill somebody. This past month, 19-year-old Nathaniel Wayne Lee and 22-year-old Troy Smiley were charged with the murder of young Jeffrey Stone, whom they brutally killed for the thrill of it. Too many kids are getting used to too much violence without ever having a sense of the reality of it.
Kids who are already at risk can easily take violent role models as their heroes. Eighteen-year-old Eric Tavulares had watched the movie Natural Born Killers some 10-20 times before he suddenly murdered his childhood sweetheart by strangling her to death while she slept. They were watching the movie once more that night, in fact. They'd turned it off about halfway through and had gone to bed, when Tavulares had an urge to turn and strangle his girlfriend Lauren Aljubouri.
"He stated he does not recall exactly what happened next," the complaint says, "but something caused him to switch mentally and he rolled over on Lauren Aljubouri and he began strangling her."
Likewise, violence in video games has reached new highs. These days it seems there is no limit to how graphic some games can be. Parents need to pay close attention to the amount of violence in the video games available today. These are not Atari "doo doo doo doo" games like Frogger and Pacman, but games with high-quality graphics and in-depth story lines. Be sure to check the ratings of the video games your kids play.
The Answer?
The answer to a lot of these problems may simply be to spend more time together as families. Turn off the television and read books together or put together puzzles. Go outside and build that tree fort or get down to the skate park. Kids know there is a lot more to life than television, and while they might gripe and complain at first, they'll appreciate it later. We'll all appreciate it.
Related Links:
• 'Natural Born Killers' Fan Charged With Strangling Girlfriend - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
• Resources - Common Sense Media
• Teenage Thrill Killers - CBS
• Teen Pregnancy � Does Media Glamorize Teen Pregnancy? - Newsweek
• Study Finds Link Between Television Viewing and Attention Problems in Children - Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center
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