Television Violence and its Effects on Children It often seems like everywhere one looks, violence rears its ugly head. We see it in the streets, back alleys, school, and even at home. The last of these is a major source of violence. In many peoples' living rooms there sits an outlet for violence that often goes unnoticed. It is the television, and the children who view it are often pulled into its realistic world of violence scenes with sometimes devastating results. Violence on television effects our children’s lives because it teaches them violence, disrespect towards others, and can impair their learning abilities. Research shows that TV is definitely a major source of violent behavior in children. The research proves time and time again that aggression and television viewing do go hand in hand. The truth about television violence and children has been shown. It can cause actual violence in a number of ways. For example: in New York, a 16-year-old boy broke into a cellar. When the police caught him and asked him why he was wearing gloves he said that he had learned to do so to not leave fingerprints and that he discovered this on television. The violence on television is more exciting than the violence that is shown on the news or what they may see on the street. Instead of just seeing a police officer handing a ticket to a speeding car, he can beat the bad guy bloody on television. However, children don't always realize this is not the way things are handled in real life. They come to expect it, and when they don't see it the world becomes boring to them. Television causes children to be violent and the effects can be life-long because they believe that its right way to be. Some psychologists and psychiatrists feel that continued exposure to this violence might speed up the impact of the adult world on the child. These are certainly startling examples of how television can affect the child, and all of these situations were caused by children watching violent television. As the child grows into an adult, he can have a greater distrust and disrespect towards others. Television can destroy a young child's mind by teaching them vulgar language and inappropriate gestures. A negative influence upsets a child and makes them want to portray an unbelievable TV characters which can lead them to acting out what they see the characters doing. This can lead to disrespect to others because they take action against their friends, other kids, and even their parents by using this language and gestures. Children have no sense of right and wrong, and if they do, they don’t care because when their peers do something they don’t like, they will fight with them. Some are trying to fight this problem. Others are ignoring it and hoping it will go away. Still others don't even seem to care. Children who watch a lot of television were compared to children who don't. The results were that the children who watched more television were more likely to agree that "it's okay to hit someone if you're mad at them for a good reason." The other group learned that problems can be solved passively, through discussion and authority (Cheyney 46). Television can disrupt a child's learning and thinking ability which can cause problems that last a lifetime. If a child cannot do well in school, his or her whole future is at stake. A reality show like Honey Boo Boo and the Family Guy are perfect examples of kids who obviously has had very little schooling and displays a very disgusting person that doesn’t care about anything except being obnoxious and disgusting. Children find these types of characters on television fun to imitate. Kids and young adults cannot seem to get enough of these fictional characters and will portray them often. “Children do imitate the behavior of models such as those portrayed in television, movies”