The Rating Wars

Well they are at it again.
Obviously parents are not capable of deterring what their children watch on television. A member of congress has again stated that TV is too violent. Stating that some programs show to much that is violent the member of congress wants more controls on what we watch. The industry is countering with proposals to provide more information at the start of shows. What is right?

Should parents have control of the programs that are watched in the home? Give them the information that they need and they should have the ability to either watch what they want or to prevent the youngest in their homes from watching. But wait does this work. After observing the actions of some parents it shows that this is not an easy situation to change. Parents do not always observe the ratting icons on products and do not seem to care that the “M” ratting on games are present to advise parents on what games are really designed for adults and not for small children. When the sales person is selling a game to a child that wants to buy an adult game the child will usually try to get an adult to purchase the game for them. The adult usually gives the clerk a very nasty look as in how dare you tell me that my child should not view the violence and hear the obscenity that comes on some games. Read the complete listing on the back of most games. Even the “E” ratted games have “cartoon violence” and some of the “T” ratted games are both violent and bloody. Do we want to make the children into very violent people or will it make them tune out the violence so that when they see it in real life they will just disregard it? Will they find that shooting real people is not what it appears in games? In real life the shot person does not get to restart their life without much suffering if they do live. Automobiles do not just put themselves together after they are destroyed. This seems to be another way that parents are not just disregarding their responsibilities but they are doing nothing to control the household. Many children are in control of the home because the parent is so determined to have a quiet home that they let the child get anything that they think the child wants.

The important thing is to give control of the television back to the parents and when an event is shown on television maybe it is better if the child and parent watch it together to allow for some discussion of the content with an adult prospective. Give the parents a choice of what they want to watch for themselves and what they should let their children watch.