Sweet Dreams, Beautiful Nightmare
14 years ago
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Parents may be the reason for increased violence
Violence and aggression in children seems to be more common in today’s modern society. Many factors are and can be reasons why youth engage in crimes such as robbing, fighting, and killing. These factors consisted of peer pressure and the need to fit in, media’s portrayal of violence in award winning movies, and linking our favorite celebrities, such as Angelina Jolie, with crime worthy roles. However, it was not until last week did I realized that parental negligence seemed to be a more powerful reason in youth aggression.
Last weekend, I went to go see “Wanted” starring Angelina Jolie. As always, this seductive woman played a bold and bad ass role that involved guns, other weapons, and of course blood. But that was expected, it was after all an action flick. However, what struck me as a complete surprise was sitting next to a very young boy of about seven or eight years old. His eyes were glued to the enormous screen while Wesley, the main character, was being stabbed and punched until he was drenched in blood. I glanced over to the boy’s right and realized an older woman, who seemed to be his mother, was sitting there with her eyes stuck to the screen as well. That was when I started to have second thoughts. Is it really media that indirectly influences children to behave aggressively? Or could it be merely the reason that parents are exposing their own children to these acts of violence? I don’t think that some parents, like the mother I briefly described earlier, are aware of their contributions to their children’s aggressive behaviors. Many still blame T.V and other sources for today’s increased violence.
Many factors surely contribute to the never ending violence we have seen thus far. However, one source is controllable and that is the parents. Parents need to realize that they have control over what their kids watch. They can prevent young children from being exposed to violence too soon by simply monitoring certain channels at home and discouraging their children from seeing anything rated R at the theater. When they have done all that they can to shield their children from violence, then they can blame the media as the reason for today’s crimes in youth. Until then, it isn’t fair for parents to blame only the media because they too are the culprits.
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3 comments:
This is a thoughtful post, and I really like how you begin with your experience at the movie. But you seem to be arguing yourself in a circle, and the specter of "the media" does not help. Your post could attain a more sharp critical edge if you took apart this term rather than deployed it as if we know exactly what you mean by it. Clearly, there is complicity between screens, viewers, actor/directors, distraction (this relates to your post about killing time), and large-scale spectacles. You shift the blame to parents, but what keeps parents from shifting the blame back to "the media"? This does not seem like a useful blame game; the more complex issue at hand is how people process entertainment, and how they absorb, adopt, or deflect what they are viewing. These are not simple matters.
There is a mistake in this sentence: "Is is really media that indirectly influences children to behave aggressively?" Proofread!
You bring up many good points when you talk about youth violence. However, I think there are different ways to view some of the aspects you brought up.
First, just because a parent watches something violent with their young child doesn't mean a parent isn't doing their job. As a young child, I grew up watching various forms of violence. Cartoon violence, television violence, video game violence, I saw all of that while I was growing up. If the parent doesn't do anything in explaining the violence, then you can possibly claim they are culprits as well. But if they are with their child explaining the violence in its context (of a movie, game, etc), they aren't necessarily a culprit because they're doing their part to help the child.
I thought it was a little odd for you to make the jump to blaming the media once it is apparent the parents couldn't shield the child from violence. Despite a massive amount of violence portrayed in media today, there are many other significant reasons behind why some children/youth are more violent.
http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,9601,00.html
The article lists out some other reasons. Some may be parent-related, some might be interpreted as being media-related, but it gives different reasons than just parents or media.
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