By: Ricardo Romeo Ramírez (psychologist)

Television may constitute a very powerful force in children lives, or it may become into one of the worst drugs. Through TV we can admire wonderful reports and documentaries, which may teach us a great variety of topics and cultivate us. Some of them are of great sensitivity and artistic content, but it is true that excess can brutalize us, because we stop using some important skills such as imagination and creative thought, leading us to escape from reality, to watch violence, murders and rapes as natural things, it also makes us idealize money and its accumulation falling into an intellectual poverty, discouragement and lack of enthusiasm.

Television is unavoidable. We all watch it! And when we prohibit our children to watch it, it is easy that they feel as social unaddapted people. That is why it is important that we know what to do with it and teach our children to relate to it in a positive way.

If television is capable of distorting, directing and motivating adult behavior, of conditioning their opinions and ways of acting, imagine what it can do to our children, and even more intensely, because they do not have yet the necessary mechanisms to make judgments or express opinions. It is we as parents, who must appeal to their great learning capacity so that they acquire these skills little by little.

Almost every kid watch television several hours a day, by the time they graduate from junior high school, most of them will have spent more time in front of a television set than inside a classroom. Watching television may increase the tendency to obesity, encourage violence and transmit unreal messages towards drugs, alcohol, sexuality and sexual relationships.

There are some questions that may help to discover if a family is addicted to television. I invite you to answer them sincerely:

Do you have lunch and dinner with the TV set on? Does any member of the family turns on the TV set as soon as he/she gets from school or work? On weekends, how long do you spend out of home and how long do you spend in a room where the TV set is the main protagonist? How many TV sets do you have at home? Answers to these questions will show you up to what point you and your family are TV dependent.

The following suggestions for parents, teachers, baby-sitters and all those people in charge of one or more children, will help children to benefit more from television and reduce the harmful consequences of it.

• Establish limits. Detect the amount of television your children are watching and do not be afraid to reduce it. It is recommended that parents limit television to 1 or 2 hours a day.

• Plan in advance what they watch. Help children to approach TV as they do with the movies, choosing from a great variety of possibilities what satisfies best their needs. Turn on the TV to watch the program they selected, once it is finished, turn it off and analyze it.

• Watch TV with your children. Interpret, talk about that TV program they are watching. Point out how much of what they are watching is real: analyze the differences between doing, believing and the real life.

• Talk about TV violence with your children. Describe how violence hurt, and analyze how TV characters could solve their problems without violence.

• Try to be a good example to imitate. Because, most of the times children follow their parents example, examine your own habits when watching TV and help your children to form good habits in the early stages of life.

• Do not use TV as a baby-sitter. Provide your children with alternatives such as activities in and out of home, such as rides, games, sports, hobbies, reading, tasks and diverse family activities.

• Oppose to commercials. Help your children to be intelligent consumers, teaching them to recognize publicity intentions. Talk about food advertised on TV and their possible effects, and the possibility of a poor quality of what is being advertised, and remember that you are a model to be imitated, if you do not preach with the example, it will be difficult for your children to follow your recommendations.

• Complement TV with other new technologies. Use a video or disc player to watch programs or pictures of interest to the whole family. Use educating films to increase children learning process.

These are only a few recommendations, but I am sure that you have heard or found other suggestions that have worked well for you or other people, why don’t you share them with us?

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