The Media and the lack of Censorship to young Children...

[Vicariously]

I know it is a parents job to "sensor" what their children see. But it seems now a days it is becoming harder and harder to do.

I got to thinking about this in the qoute thread. I quickly became addicted to finding some of my favorite movie qoutes and debated on what was "acceptable" to post.

I realized that there were probally some youngens on this board that will read it....and then another thought hit me...

while I sat there and thought of things that would not be acceptable, and decided not to post, most kids have already seen and are already qouting!

The realization that kids are growing up alot faster hit me as well.

I mean a prime example is I know school aged kids (9 year olds) who have cell phones! Cell phones! Once upon a time only "business folks" carried cell phones or had car phones or beepers (hahaha remember those?)

you never heard of an elementary school aged kid having a beeper. but now they have something that is ten steps above that even!

I know that they (cell phones) might be handy for parents to keep in contact with kids that have after school activities but still....

It got me thinking about so much more...The Bratz dolls and the message that they send? Was Barbie that ummm for a lack of a better term "skanky"?
Possibly but wow! These are what 5 year olds are playing with them and mimicking their style sense?!?!?!?!

Is it just me or is society aging our children before they should?

Aggg I sound like one of those FCC women!!!

but I thought it would prove to be an interesting discussion anyhow...In all reality I dont think I would deem Buffy even as appropiate for a 10 year old...maybe 12 or 13 but THATS pushing it...is my problem that I am a prude or am I in any way right to feel this way?

::hangs her head in shame:: I'm doing the "mommy" thing again arent I? LOL

 

[Angels baby101]

Honestly i know how ya feel i mean I haven't had my kid yet but i swear.... I'm sorry My kid isnt getting a cellphone till they are like 16 cause i cant stand those 13 year old girls that stand in line at a store with their mom dressed way to mature for there age talking on a cell phone honestly i wanna go up and slap the mom....

I Agree what happened to Barbie? at least she was classy.... lol

I wouldn't go so far as to say Buffy is inappropriate for 10 year olds... honestly its cleaner than most shows.....

 

[TrueVengeance]

It depends soley on the kid, IMO. Some eight year olds could handle something better then some 10 year olds. Do I think kids should be shielded from things seen in Buffy? No. I know 10-11 aged kids that adore Buffy. They've seen the whole series more times than most (not me though 😛 ).

One problem I have is when people try to shield thier child from everything. I mean more from age 8+. If they go to a school they no about certain things long before you ever tell them.

Hmm...i dunno. Just depends on the kid *shrugs*

 

[white avenger]

I have a friend who won't let her 12 and 14 year old sons watch any of my Buffy, Angel, or Highlander tapes because she believs that they are too violent and sexually oriented (she does admit that she thinks James Marsters is hot, though.) I think it's her decision and I support her in it, though I believe she goes a bit too far sometimes. At least she takes an interest in what her kids watch and read. That's unfortunately becoming more and more rare these days.

 

[Vicariously]

Honestly i know how ya feel i mean I haven't had my kid yet but i swear.... I'm sorry My kid isnt getting a cellphone till they are like 16 cause i cant stand those 13 year old girls that stand in line at a store with their mom dressed way to mature for there age talking on a cell phone honestly i wanna go up and slap the mom....

I Agree what happened to Barbie? at least she was classy.... lol

I wouldn't go so far as to say Buffy is inappropriate for 10 year olds... honestly its cleaner than most shows.....

I think I have decided that its just Americans wanting to spend money...companies try to sell you with the whole its only ten dollars more scam but its not because you gotta think the more people the more minutes = the more money hahahaha

yeah I thought she was more so...I am waiting for the Bratz dolls to have belly rings, back tattoos and eyebrows, nose, chin and tongue peircings LOL

It is cleaner than most shows...hell daytime soaps are cleaner than most primetime shows...Ask my kid brother what his favorite TV shows and movies are he'd tell you Family Guy, Futurama & Borat! (personally I think these are all funny but I looked at my mom like, Hello do you watch these before you let him watch them?!?!?!) My brother is older though he's 13...but he started watching at 11!!!! oh and at that time his favorite song was the Eminem and d12 song My Band.

My moms response to me was I dont like it but he will see it anyway with friends...grrr!

 

[Kean]

I know how you feel. My neice is 9 and really I worry about how grown up she acts about certain things. She is obsessesed with High School musical and pretty much and other American high school show she can get her hands on, which is fine in theory but I recently found a a copy she had been writing in and it almost seemed like that diss book from Mean Girls...it worries me that she has these advanced ideas and musings. She's a real girly girl so she is very much into her fashion but my sister holds her back as much as possible, the phone thing also bugs the hell out of me! I was 15 before I got one! why does a child need one anyway!

As far as Buffy is concerned, well she has grown up watching it with myself and my sisters but if I could do it again I would wait until she was 12 or 13, there just so many issues that are brought up that I think youger kids would have trouble grasping. Its hypercritical I know, since I was watching the show at 11 but I can't help but want to keep her innocent as long as I can. She will have to be grown up for long enough.

 

[palabravampiress]

I'm 24 and not a parent.

As far as censorship goes, well, my parents never censored what I watched or read. I never had a curfew. I never had a lot of typical rules. Instead, my parents were strict about responsibility and grades. I got a couple of Cs Freshman year... and I was grounded for 6 weeks until those grades were As like they should have been. No phone. No TV. No books. No anything but homework. My parents focused more on responsibility and performance than on arbitrarily designated rules. I think every parent should be able to decide how to raise his or her children. If that includes censorship, so be it. If a parent chooses to raise his or her children as I was raised, I think society should offer that flexibility. When society makes rules about what children can or cannot see or read or experience in some way, then I think they are infringing upon the rights of parents who might wish to expose their children to that material under controlled circumstances. I also think it infringes upon the rights of other citizens who wish to produce or sell the material in question or to view it without harassment or embarrassment.

In short, I suppose I am for censorship by parents, but not by external agencies or law making bodies.

 

[Vicariously]

In theory I think I agree with you palabravampiress,

I think its awesome that your parents allowed you to make your own decisions and mistakes ...

I agree that parents should be able to decide how and what their kids see...and actually as weird as this sounds that is exactly why I posted this...

It is becomeing harder and harder for a parent to protect their young children from pre-aged maturity (in a sense) when you cant check out a super market without a dozen magazine covers shoving it in your face...when the kids they go to school with are exposed to it and enevitably share it with your child...

I know we cant shelter our kids forever but what happened to the age of innocence? It seems to be getting younger and younger....::sigh:: I dont really think there is a true answer to the situation 🙁 🙁

 

[palabravampiress]

In theory I think I agree with you palabravampiress,

I think its awesome that your parents allowed you to make your own decisions and mistakes ...

I agree that parents should be able to decide how and what their kids see...and actually as weird as this sounds that is exactly why I posted this...

It is becomeing harder and harder for a parent to protect their young children from pre-aged maturity (in a sense) when you cant check out a super market without a dozen magazine covers shoving it in your face...when the kids they go to school with are exposed to it and enevitably share it with your child...

I know we cant shelter our kids forever but what happened to the age of innocence? It seems to be getting younger and younger....::sigh:: I dont really think there is a true answer to the situation 🙁 🙁

Do you think innocence can really be lost via exposure to media?

Let's say you think Buffy is too violent for, say, a 6-year-old. Maybe you're afraid that said 6-year-old will be unable to differentiate between real life violence and TV violence and, while playing "Buffy" with her friends, will injure another child with a stick. That sounds like a reasonably likely scenario, does it not?

The question here is... is a child who watches Buffy really statistically more likely to suffer negative social side effects (in this case, harming another child while on the playground) than a child who doesn't watch Buffy?

I'm not sure it's exposure to media that causes loss of innocence as much as it is actually having a child experience something. The only way that media could contribute would be by somehow actively causing that experience to occur. Because most people are able to view violent or sexual material without becoming violent or hyper-sexual themselves, I can't say that I think exposure to violent or sexual material really has the power to cause a child to actively experience something in such a way as to constitute loss of innocence.

What do you guys think?

 

[tommy]

Someone uploaded a bunch of hardcore porn videos to Gametrailers.com the other day, a site mainly visited by young teens. They got a decent amount of views and comments before being removed. These kinds of things can happen now. Oh, and on the forum someone posted a real video of a woman being stabbed dozens of times.

A bunch of kids (10-14 I guess) hang around in my street smoking and swearing and groping each other, even into the night. I never see the useless parents. Yesterday at a bus station I saw a young girl wearing an odd belt with an electronic screen that scrolls the word "****" continously. I wondered what the old ladies waiting for their bus thought about that.

edit: oh, no swears on this board apparently. it's a slang word for vagina, starting with a 'c'

 

[Buffy Summers]

I think exposure to it desensitizes children to those kind of things, so they don't see things as wrong or dangerous when they should. I would ask, why do you think kids today are so different? What is different these days if it's not early exposure to "grown up things" through the media?

There was this article - it might have actually been in Glamour or Self or something like that - that had the headline "Please stop teaching 5 year olds to dress like sluts" and it wa about the whole Bratz thing.

 

[palabravampiress]

I think exposure to it desensitizes children to those kind of things, so they don't see things as wrong or dangerous when they should. I would ask, why do you think kids today are so different? What is different these days if it's not early exposure to "grown up things" through the media?

There was this article - it might have actually been in Glamour or Self or something like that - that had the headline "Please stop teaching 5 year olds to dress like sluts" and it wa about the whole Bratz thing.

You make a good point. That outcome is quite possible, especially if parents don't take the time to make sure that children know the difference between reality and TV (or movies or books or any other sort of media) or if, for some other reason, a child is not yet capable of making that distinction even with guidance. That's why I think the decision should be up to the parents. Every child is different. Every parent is different. I fully support a parent's right to raise his or her child as he or she sees fit -- even if that includes censorship. That's why I support voluntary ratings systems, like TV ratings, that describe potentially objectionable material without actively prohibiting a private citizen from accessing it.

Where I begin to draw the line is when those decisions are taken out of the parents' hands. I think a parent who fears desensitizing his or her child to violence should be free to forbid that child from viewing violent material. I do not, however, think that a parent who fears desensitizing his or her child should take the opposite but equal right from other parents (in this case, the right to expose the child to violent media under controlled circumstances) just to make the job of upholding his or her own convictions easier.

Does that make sense? I guess I'm saying that there isn't just one way to raise a child. I oppose programs or laws that are put in place to enforce standards that cannot be overridden by parents who may choose an alternative approach for their children.

 

[Vicariously]

Do I think innocence can be lost by exposure to the media? Yes I do...

why? because children are impressionable. I do however think it a parents responsiblity to teach a child right from wrong...but...if a child idolizes a character that is particulary violent or sexual he or she is more often than not going to take the "monkey see, monkey do" approach to things...(lets stop out of the box here and use a completely outside example: lets say sesame street...a child can sit and watch the show and learn can they not? Does a child not see the letter "C" on the screen hear that it is a "C" and then not recognize it latter? They DO recognize it as a "C"...they really do. Thats the reason they call it "educational television" because it is proven to work. I know that was completely unrelated, but it was to simply to prove that a child does in fact mimick things seen on TV)

think about it...why else do they call Paris Hilton and Britney Spears "Trend Setters"? Do you know how many times I hear the expression "Thats Hott" or see people carrying little dogs in lavish carrying bags while shopping. As if it was an accessory.

When I hear my pre-teen sister and her friends talk about oral sex like they know what its all about and I KNOW they werent taught to think in that way by my parents....


It ultimately just scares me that kids are being de-sensitized at such a young age and society thinks its normal...like I said in my original post it may just my being a prude and I may need to just accept it for what it is...and "get with the times"

Its just weird when you are 24 years old and you remember "the good old days" and can say to yourself "in my day" ect ect ect....::sigh::

 

[white avenger]

I know how you feel. My neice is 9 and really I worry about how grown up she acts about certain things. She is obsessesed with High School musical and pretty much and other American high school show she can get her hands on, which is fine in theory but I recently found a a copy she had been writing in and it almost seemed like that diss book from Mean Girls...it worries me that she has these advanced ideas and musings. She's a real girly girl so she is very much into her fashion but my sister holds her back as much as possible, the phone thing also bugs the hell out of me! I was 15 before I got one! why does a child need one anyway!

As far as Buffy is concerned, well she has grown up watching it with myself and my sisters but if I could do it again I would wait until she was 12 or 13, there just so many issues that are brought up that I think youger kids would have trouble grasping. Its hypercritical I know, since I was watching the show at 11 but I can't help but want to keep her innocent as long as I can. She will have to be grown up for long enough.

I agree with you and commend you for your concern for your niece's welfare. As a dear friend of mine recently pointed out to me, the safety of our children has to be foremost in our concerns in a world becoming more and more dangerous every day. Sometimes in my own insulated world I tend to forget that, but luckily I do have friends to help me remember, and I consider myself very lucky to have them.

 

[Buffy Summers]

Does that make sense? I guess I'm saying that there isn't just one way to raise a child. I oppose programs or laws that are put in place to enforce standards that cannot be overridden by parents who may choose an alternative approach for their children.

Yep I understand. And I mostly agree. I just more recently have begun to fear that our society is suffering because there aren't enough parents taking the time to parent their children.

Maybe part of the problem with all of this is that kids today (speaking in generalizations obviously) seem to for the most part get whatever they want. Cell phones, wiis, ipods etc. So it's less the things they're being exposed to, than the fact that they don't know how to live in a world where they don't get everything they want the second they want it.

What I was originally going to say in this thread but forgot lol, was that we get a lot of flack for the "family friendly" clause here on the boards. Because people say, if they can watch Angel and Buffy, they can hear swear words, graphic fanfics etc. But we've always said that we have some really young members and their parents should feel comfortable allowing them on the boards, that they should feel safe here. I admit that we have had members who I personally thought were too young to be watching Buffy and Angel - but that part wasn't my call. What they saw here, was my call.

🙂

 

[palabravampiress]

Yep I understand. And I mostly agree. I just more recently have begun to fear that our society is suffering because there aren't enough parents taking the time to parent their children.

Maybe part of the problem with all of this is that kids today (speaking in generalizations obviously) seem to for the most part get whatever they want. Cell phones, wiis, ipods etc. So it's less the things they're being exposed to, than the fact that they don't know how to live in a world where they don't get everything they want the second they want it.

What I was originally going to say in this thread but forgot lol, was that we get a lot of flack for the "family friendly" clause here on the boards. Because people say, if they can watch Angel and Buffy, they can hear swear words, graphic fanfics etc. But we've always said that we have some really young members and their parents should feel comfortable allowing them on the boards, that they should feel safe here. I admit that we have had members who I personally thought were too young to be watching Buffy and Angel - but that part wasn't my call. What they saw here, was my call.

🙂

I like the "family friendly" clause. I definitely think a private website owner has the right to impose rules and restrictions as he or she sees fit. I think your family friendly clause actually helps to keep the board very positive and friendly.

I also understand what you and some others are saying about "kids today." My sister and I are only 5 years apart, and yet we are worlds apart just in the types of influences that we had as we were growing up. Cell phones, fashion, dolls, IPODs, the internet, etc... things certainly are different! The prude in me is really quite appalled by those Bratz dolls. lol. As for cell phones, well, I didn't have one of those until I was married. I still don't have an IPOD. Obviously, I have internet access, but I didn't have that until I was 16. Heck, the first time I saw a computer, I was 10! I spent most of my time playing outside. Kids today seem to spend a lot more time watching TV, listening to music, paying attention to fashion, etc. than I ever did. If I'm being honest, I have to admit that the differences are really quite startling. I didn't expect to be 24 and able to say "back in my day!"

 

[VisionGuy]

I also understand what you and some others are saying about "kids today." I didn't expect to be 24 and able to say "back in my day!"

I feel you on that. I'm only 20 years old and the high school kids are so different from when I graduated two and a half years ago. Not just them but kids are getting cell phones to early. My first cell phone was at 15 when I was a freshman, but now you see elementary school kids with them. Acting grown, talking about sex, dressing like skanks. That was never seen back in my day and my day was just the other day.

 

[Randy Giles]

I think it's fine for parents to censor what their children see for the most part. However, I think it would be best if there were a limit to that. Most kids would want to rebel and as soon as they went out into the real world, they could change for the worst. So I think parents should mainly just try to teach their kids certain values and stuff but not try to totally protect them from the world, because it could backfire.

I also do not believe that the government/FCC has any right to dictate what's appropriate for the American public. Broadcast TV should have SOME guidelines but I don't believe it's THAT hard for a parent to keep inappropriate shows from their children, and if their kids want to see it badly enough, they'll find a way.

And I absolutely LOATHE the Parents Television Council, what a bunch of idiots. They watch every single show they oppose just so they can write letters to complain about it. Get a life.

 

[Blondie Bear]

Disclaimer: I am not a parent and don't actually plan on ever being (though I do have ideas of how I'll raise my kids if I ever do have them).

I think kids are smarter and more stable than people give them credit for. I'm doing a lot of reading on Christian objections to Harry Potter etc. for my thesis, and it's amazing how many people worry about their children becoming involved in the occult because of a book they read. I think if more parents sat down with their kids and discussed what the kids are seeing on TV and reading in books, they'd realize that the kids KNOW that pointing a stick at someone and speaking Latin won't do anything. They're not blank slates just waiting to be inscribed with anything that comes along. Kids have the ability to think critically just like every other human being, they just have less experience to do it with. That's what parents are for.

I read an article a few weeks ago (and if anyone's interested I'll try to find it again and link to it) about how Americans idolize youth now. It's not "cool" to act your age; you have to be 21 for as long as possible, even when you're a parent, 40, and too old to be acting like a kid. We don't teach people to grow up, we teach them that being mature and "old" is "lame." Media and other cultural forces are aimed at young people (and people who try to act young). Is it any wonder we're in the situation we're in, when this is going on?

 

[DarklyDreamingDrusilla]

As an older sister of a four year old brother who thinks Spike is awesome. I make sure to only let him watch episodes that are not based on Spuffy getting it on. I will let him watch some parts of episodes that I know are not "bad" He just likes watching Spike beat up the bad guys like on Transformers or Power Rangers. So yeah I think that censorship is definatly an important things for adults to do and take care of. They need to watch out for what their kids (or younger brothers) are watching.