Parental Guidence on TV
Television is a problem that is affecting the way children behave in many communities in our country. Parents are seeking a way to educate the problem albeit they may be the biggest contributors of the problem by not checking on what their children are watching. It is the premise of the paper to show and discuss the new ways that parents can find out what is appropriate for their children to watch by using the new TV ratings systems. There have been many things that people have tried to help this problem. Research completed by Working Woman magazine shows that, "July 1 was a landmark date for parents: the first time we can walk into a store and buy a television set with the much-touted V-chip." (Elliot 22) The V-chip was a breakthrough for technology and when it was released some parents thought that all their problems would be solved. Television and its programs have many things that parents don't want their kids watching. S. Elliot of Working Woman magazine says, "Not everything on television is good for kids. The V-chip is a way our family keeps you safe. TV-Y shows are the ones for you." (Elliot 22) The V-chip was a way to block anything on TV that parents didn't want their children to see.
ut what their children are seeing where ever they are, in fact Barbara Meltz of the Boston Globe believes that, "The same parent who cares enough to buy a TV with technology capable of blocking violent programming is probably the parent who pays attention to the movies their children see. According the Boston Globe, "When the rating is shown, it's displayed in the upper left hand corner of the screen for the first 15 seconds of the show. As we have seen, parents play a very big role in choosing what their children can watch and are probably the main reason their kids are watching inappropriate things on television. Many TV shows are just too much for your kids to handle no matter what time of the day it is. Although there are shows for everyone on television, the most common rating you will probably see form my experiences is TV-PG. It was stated earlier that ratings were easy to find in the upper left hand corner of your screen for about 15 seconds, but that is only with most TV shows, so you ask, what about the rest? Meltz says the reason is that, "Ratings are not universally or always easy to find," (Meltz 3) so what should you do during a situation like this? I say that you should just watch the beginning of the show, you should be able to figure out how appropriate it is just by that, if not, then it is entirely up to the parents than. " (Meltz 3) Parents should not be able to make an excuse about this either, so what is causing these parents to have so many problems stopping what their kids watch? Another problem is that most parents just don't understand what all the letters mean when being put in a row. Television really does influence children behavior and I feel if we all work together we can solve this problem. The ratings for the most part are pretty easy to understand but if there is any problems with what the letters shown in the upper left hand corner of your screen stand for, Barbara Meltz clears it up by stating, "The basic symbols of ratings are V (violence), S (sexual situations, L (crude language), or D (dialogue about sex). " (Meltz 3) This usually means that this program is suitable for your children; however, there still may be things in the program that you may not want your children to watch. Barbara Meltz makes this conclusion: "TV-G never has content ratings, which means if there's any violence at all, there is no warning. " (Meltz 3) This is just one of the many signs that parents can look for with the way the new TV ratings system works. TV-PG is not the only common rating you will experience while watching TV. Parents should also not have much of a problem in finding out what the show their child is about to watch is rated. One source indicated that, "V, S, L, and/or D may accompany a TV-PG or TV-14 rating so it would look something like this: TV-14-SL," (Meltz 3) which is actually really not that hard to understand.
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