Taylor 1
Marcus Taylor
Prof: Smith
English 43
23 May 2013
Parental Guidance The role of being a parent is an essential one that requires a firm commitment to protect, nurture, care and love your child. Some parents take on the role of becoming a friend to their child which, in some cases, may work especially if it allows your child to feel comfortabe enough to have confience in you with the various uncertainties that may come along with parenthood. The dialog between you and your child in making decisions to avoid drugs, alcohol, abusive relationships and many other challenges that he/she may encouter in their lives depends on good parenting and restrictions. According to his article, Dr. Fatma Tezel-Sahin says,
The most fundamental contribution of parent involvement is that it enables parents to stake a claim on children’s rights, which increases their awareness to espouse their children both at school and home. Parent involvement activities reinforce parents to play a major role to make changes in the society, particularly in their children (Tezel-Sahin 421).
Parental involvement in a child’s life is essential for creating a cooperative environment for the child to thrive and succeed in. Good parental guidence is important in today’s society because it molds ones’ child with guidelines and morals. This is essential when deciding what to allow them to watch on the television or whatever devises that may influence ones’ child. Ever since television was
Taylor 2 invented it has become increasingly controversial with every coming year. So many programs and movies shown today have become filled with more sexual content. For example, if one were to turn on the six o’ clock news, one would hear about the murders, kidnappings and other horrible events which happen in today’s society. Now imagine little Suzy trying to find her cartoon SpongeBob Square Pants but instead ends up watching something disturbing from the news. It would mortify her and she would not be the same. That’s why it is important to have good parental advisory one one’s television. Numerous studies has been conducted on the effect television violence has on children and adolescence. Children tend to develop an emotional numbness to all the horror seen on the screen, and gradually accept violence as the norm and a way to solve problems. Parents can protect their children by engaging them with different after school programs, paying attention to the television their children are watching, and trying to block some channels showing inappropriate content.
The role of a parent is to monitor what ones’ child watches and the content that is observed. In today’s society it is difficult to monitor one’s children’s actions. The economy is very different today than in the past forcing parents to both works in the household, which prevents parents from monitoring their children actions. Parental guidance has taken a backseat to the financial means of maintaining a household. Without proper parental involvement, children will become disrespectful and disobedient to their parents and other adults.
In the article Determinants of parental guidance of children's television viewing: A Dutch replication study by Van der Voort he says, “Parental discussions with children about programs watched together can help children understand and retain the content of children’s programs, educational programs, and programs meant for adults” (Van der Voort 50). Children
Taylor 3 should be exposed to some news that may broaden the child’s comprehension of today’s current events. It is important to take the chance to sit and communicate with one’s child or children about the content on the television to show the growth of being a good parent. Television has always been America’s favorite source of entertainment. However, it is the violence and sexual content that have increased over the years that makes T.V. programs so intriguing. Isn’t that why we