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Posts tagged ‘children’

Feb 26

A recent dispatch from the continuum of moral panic

One of the latest “it” books for Young Adults to receive moral panic from parents is the dystopian sci-fi trilogy The Hunger Games.  In the novels, children must fight for their respective geographical regions in violent, homicidal contests.  The books have become very popular, leading to a soon-to-be-released film.  But since this novel is aimed at YA readers, its depiction of children waging war upon each other – even killing one another – has ruffled the feathers of some parents.  In this article dating from October, 2010, a New Hampshire parent of an 11 year old daughter has called for her local school district to remove the book from its reading schedule.  The mother claims that her 11 year old had nightmares after reading some of the novel.  She also claims the violence depicted could numb some children.

These concerns fit into class discussions on moral panic.  Such worries over violence are echoed in our studies on comic books.  Worries over a detrimental numbing effect coincide with our studies on parental fears of television.  In both cases, the New Hampshire parent prefigures negative ramifications on her child – and other children – due to exposure to what she deems questionable subject matter involving violence.

The article goes on, however, to voice others’ opinions about the propriety of the novel and the demands one parent can have over a group of children.  A censorship expert cautions against this tyranny of the minority in the article.  She claims that these issues are very delicate, but ultimately it isn’t right for one parent to hold sway over a curriculum involving 20 or more children.  This underlines an important aspect of class discussions on moral panic.  Who exactly is right?  The parent (or parents) objecting to material or those who refuse to censor creative expression?  At the time of the article, neither side is victorious.  A committee had been formed to discuss the book and make a decision.  What they decide will effect whether the book is banned, or if it will continue to be read.

 

On an interesting side note, the article mentions that the book is being read as an alternative for children who choose not to take a foreign language class.  In my opinion, that should be what the outrage is about.  How a pop culture, YA book can stand in for exposure to another culture’s language is beyond me.  It seems silly to get into an uproar over “appropriate content,” but not to be concerned with a lack of interest children have (or are motivated to have) in learning a new language.

Feb 26

Ren and Stimpy

One of the cartoons I used to watch in my childhood, “Ren and Stimpy,” in particular relates to the concepts of anxious parents and concerns over children’s television that we discussed in relation to the Chudacoff reading, “The Commercialization and Co-optation of Children’s Play.” “Ren and Stimpy” was created in 1991 by a Canadian animator named John Kricfalusi for the children’s channel Nickelodeon. The show focused on the adventures of a chihuahua named Ren and his dim-witted cat friend Stimpy, and the various gross and outrageous situations they would get themselves in to. This was one of the major concerns my parents had over me watching this program. In the article Cartoons Aren’t Real! Ren and Stimpy in Review, by Animation World Magazine, the author states that, “The Ren and Stimpy Show featured filth, illness, disease and mutilation to an unprecedented degree, making these horrors an integral part of the show.” My parents were very disturbed by the sorts of gross-out comedy and toilet humour that the show relied on for the majority of its punch lines.  Whether it was scenes of outrageous violence and mutilation, or bodily fluids spraying all over the place, “Ren and Stimpy” was always good for a laugh, and contained a variety of great low-brow humor. My parents worried, however, that by allowing me to view things such as this at the young age where I was watching Nickelodeon, my growth would be stunted, and I would be exposed to things I didn’t yet understand. This related to the fears we discussed in relation to the Chudacoff reading. Parents were worried that if children saw inappropriate or adult content on the television, their emotional development would be stunted, and they would be prematurely aged by things they were too young to comprehend. I can’t say how much of this was true for me, but “Ren and Stimpy” was a staple in my television viewing as a child, and was one of the most ground-breaking shows of its time for its willingness to go to extreme lengths in depictions of the gross and disgusting.

A scene of gross-out humor common in Ren and Stimpy to serve as an example.

 

 

Feb 25

Children and TV

calorielab.com

In the article Children and Watching TV, The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry argues the effects that television has on children and the family structure. The article argues that children spend a majority of their time watching TV; this can be detrimental to the child’s development. Though TV can be fun and keep kids occupied, it can have adverse effects. Watching a lot of TV can harm children’s school work, family relationships, and social development. They can learn bad things from TV as well. The article states that children have a problem with identifying fantasy from reality. TV has a lot of violent and sexually explicit material that may be too much for children. The writers believe that parents should take a more active role in what their kids watch. Parents should do this by sitting down and watching TV with their kids. They could  limit the amount of TV and censor the shows kids watch.  The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry believes the amount of TV should be limited and parents should play a more active role in their children’s lives. This article is coming from Doctors perspective geared towards parents. These psychiatrists are trying to tell these parents what they should be doing to help with child development. In Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt”, it was about a house that did everything for the family inside of it. After realizing their kids were reading stories of Africa and created a “veldt”, the parents became concerned about the house and it’s effects on their children. The mother felt as if she was no longer a mother figure to her kids since the house did everything a mother should do; the father had these same feelings as well. The parents were no longer playing an active role in their kids lives and the house had taken their responsibility. The house and the TV are the same in this argument. The house and the TV are being used as “babysitter” for kids. You can basically throw your child in front of a TV and they will be fine. It’s teaching them, it’s entertaining them; it takes responsibility away from parents. The house had the same effect; the parents no longer felt like they were being parents because the house took care of the kids. I do not believe that the effects of TV on children have changed very much from years ago. There is more media for children to view now than before, but; media still has it’s same effect on children whether new or old. TV is still a heavily debated  one for kids. It still has it’s same influences on children and parents still react the same to it. TV is always going to be the same and you can only limit a child for so long.

Feb 25

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Television and Children: Health Concerns

Photo from almightydad.com, a parenting website.

An article from Time magazine claims that watching television is sedentary behavior, which leads to obesity and bad health. The author of the article, Alice Park, says that researchers in the U.S. and in Spain studied 111 children 3-8 years old and concluded that of all the kinds of inactivity they studied, tv-watching was worst. The study showed a higher blood pressure in kids who watched a lot of tv, whether the kid was overweight or healthy. Other activities such as computer usage did not show the same blood pressure issues. The researchers tracked the childrens’ inactivity over one week using accelerometers. They found that kids who watched 90 – 330 minutes of tv per day had systolic and diastolic blood-pressure readings that were much higher than children who watched less than half an hour per day. The author quotes Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston, who says, “These results show that TV-viewing really is the worst of all possible sedentary activities”. She also cites the American Academy of Pedriatrics, which recommends that children under 2 should not watch tv at all and that older children should watch only 1 or 2 hours a day. The researchers also explain that tv-watching is often accompanied by eating ‘junk food’, which can also raise blood pressure readings.

The author, Alice Park, is a staff writer for Time magazine. She generally reports on health and medicine issues. Perhaps as a result of her background, the article seems much more focused on the medical/health effects of watching too much tv rather than the psychological effects. This differs from most of the readings, which have been more focused on psychological impacts.

According to Lynn Spiegel, adults attacked television for several reasons. One reason is that graphic violence, sexuality, and bad behavior have unwholesome effects on children which threaten “the need to maintain power hierarchies between generations and to keep children innocent of adult secrets” (144).  Parents also worried that tv did not promote family values, and felt a lack of control over what the children were exposed to (147).  Adults had “a marked desire to keep childhood as a period distinct from adulthood”, so they were extremely concerned about children aquiring knowledge of adulthood before they should (150). And, of course there were fears of children imitating on-screen violence and becoming juvenile delinquents (146). However, there is some overlap between these two sources. Spiegel mentions the idea of “telebugeye”, or “a pale, weak, stupid-looking creature who grew bugeyed from sitting and watching telvision too long” (147). Parents were convinced that telvision was becoming an addiction for children, which would “reverse good habits of hygiene, nurtrition, and decorum, causing physical, mental, and social disorders” (147). I think the Time article reveals something new about the adverse effects of television, (the blood pressure findings) although the topic of health concerns as a result of watching tv is not new. These worries voiced in the Spiegel reading and the Time article have been constant since the 50’s.

Feb 14

Should Video Games Take A Break?

Recently an article was written about how some of the most popular video games that we know today need to “take a vacation”. Ben Silverman wrote in Yahoo! Games that game publishers year after year produce new versions of their games  to milk out every dollar from their consumers that they can. Games such as Sonic the Hedgehog and The Sims are two of the five franchises that are recommended to take a break and cool it for a while. Each game is praised for its popularity and lovability, but criticized on the fact that all the repetition is dull and overkill. As I read this, I started comparing children today and children that lived less than a hundred years ago. In the article “I’m Bored: The Two Faces of Entertainment”, Stearns (1-29), the author argues that children, over time, started becoming bored more easily and parents increasingly felt the need to entertain their children. It’s pretty crazy to think that pre World War II, children were left to roam their neighborhoods freely and had to rely on themselves to find entertainment. Kids had to use their imaginations to create characters and games. Now, youth in America is shown, from an extremely young age, the possibilities they have with technology. One stereotype of little boys in today’s society is the one who is glued to his video games and doesn’t ever see the light of day, contrasting with how little kids should be out and active all day. Now, not only do kids have access to video games, but there are literally thousands and thousands of options, all with just the slightest changes. This article is supposed to simply criticize certain video games for their overkill, but when you look at it in the context of comparing it to our youth today and the youth we’ve been studying in class, it makes you think about how extreme and sometimes ridiculous entertainment is today.

Video Game Youth from Google Images

Feb 12

Sophia Grace

Sophia and Rosie's first appearance on Ellen

Sophia Grace is a vivacious eight year old little British girl who has brought laughs and entertainment to millions of YouTube viewers. Sophia got her big break with a video of her and her cousin, Rosie, singing to Nicki Minaj’s song “Super Bass”. Within days they became YouTube sensations. Their rendition of “Super Bass” gained so much popularity that the girls were asked to be on the Ellen show. The girls performed their version of “Super Bass” in their signature tiaras and pink tutus. Millions of viewers ate up the cute performance and wanted more. Ellen recently asked the girls to come back on the show and perform a new song for America. The girls sang “Turn My Swag On” by Keri Hilson who is a pop/R&B artist. Sophia even added her own rap to the song. After her performance Sophia received a standing ovation and Ellen even invited them to the Grammy Awards. While I do admit that I think these girls are adorable and their performances are funny, sometimes I question myself if this is appropriate for kids their ages to be singing. For example the lyrics to “Super Bass” have subject matter that deals with drugs, sex, and has vulgar language. The same subject matter is also present in Keri Hilson’s song that she preformed a couple of days ago. I have no idea if Sophia’s parents encourage her to sing these songs because they think it is entertaining to see little girls talk about grown up subject matter or if that is the type of music Sophia listens to. While Sophia and Rosie are not professional child actors like Shirley Temple, I feel they are exposed to some of the same situations. For example in class we watched one of Shirley Temple’s first movies where a bunch of babies were portraying grown up behaviors and situations for comedic relief. I feel that Sophia and Rosie are providing comedic relief to millions at their own expense because I don’t think they know what they are actually singing about. It is possible that as they grow older they can look back on their performances and possibly be embarrassed by the mature subject matter. The reading from Kasson about Shirley Temple also points out that Shirley’s parents were the ones who received most of Shirley’s hard earned money (136).  I feel Sophia’s situation can relate to Shirley’s because it is possible that her parents are reaping benefits off of Sophia’s instant fame.

Feb 12

Bringing Up Baby

Tom Ashbrook’s show On Point challenges the notion that there are universals in parenting in last Tuesday’s episode, “Bringing Up Baby.” He interviewed Pamela Druckerman, author of Bringing up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, and developmental psychologist, Jennifer Lansford.

The French focus on a balance between parenting and being adults. According to Druckerman, parents interfere less with their child’s experiences, believing that “kids and adults need space and privacy to cultivate their inner lives.”

Peter Stearns, in the chapter from Anxious Parents entitled “I’m Bored”, explains how much of modern American parenting is a response to children’s boredom and the guilt felt by parents to entertain them.

"It was so easy to think of food as a legitimate reward for being a child when a parent was too busy to offer more elaborate entertainments or felt guilty about not having enough time to spend." (p. 25) (click for source)

Druckerman’s discussion of children’s food made me reflect on my childhood. My poor mom must have had such a hard task pleasing my very picky sister and me. She likes to joke that always if one of us liked a meal, the other wouldn’t. Druckerman says that there are no kids foods in France. Kids inevitably won’t like every food they’re given, so parents just require them to taste the food. The American way, in contrast, is indulgence. Peter Stearns, in his book Anxious Parents, argues, “Tolerance of children’s eating habits… resulted from the real commitment to providing pleasure” (p. 25). In other words, eating is another way to entertain kids.

The perceived frailty of American children is discussed both by Druckerman and Stearn. Druckerman says that French children are more autonomous, and French parents are more comfortable setting boundaries.

Childrearing beliefs are strongly tied to the culture they are found in. I think Stearn’s observation of parents’ obsession with entertaining their children are reflected in our society’s own entertainment consumption habits among adults.

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