Children from the now of days spend more time watching television than they do in the classroom. This can be helpful to children if it’s used as a learning tool, like channel 11, or Dora, Word World or other educational cartoons shows. The level of violence that they see on Cartoon Network is to violent and not educational or just plain fun entertainment like I use to watch. Morning programming is about 20 to 25 violent acts per hour. Are we just looking for ratings or popularity? At this rate, the average American child will see 8,000 murders before they finish elementary school! This has to stop our children will have no child hood not an innocent one.

As a child sits in front of Television, with his or her eyes glued to the TV and not making a sound in being so in to a channel you have not selected, you may want to sit down and actually view what they watching. One day I sat with my children and let them navigate the channels and of course SpongeBob came on. At first it was ok then Patrick and SpongeBob began to curse but using words that grownups may use so children don’t know they are cursing, and my children began to laugh as if they knew what they were saying. I immediately got upset and changed the channel and banned it form in my house hold.
We have to remember that the entertainment media plays an extremely powerful role in the formation of values and morals, to all youngsters' minds of all ages. These programs "play" with kids' minds; these programs have a tremendous negative effect on our children. We, as a society, must save about our children’s future and take a parenting role in protecting our children from the violence on our television.

Television cartoons often feature dehumanized characters, such as Transformers and the Ninja Turtles, who engage in the destructive acts of violence by fighting our real life social problems. With acts of violence, kids learn to think that's how they should solve their problems. MTV's Beavis and Butt-head encourages fire, smoking, foul language, drinking and stealing. The latest buzz is Boondocks an African American cartoon character and a black man who is racist of African Americans who think she is white. These characters curses and play out real life events like the R-Kelly trial. My oldest son who is 12 said he had watched it one day at night when he could not sleep. My wife has now set a block on the television. With these bad attitudes seen depicted as normal on TV shows kids are lead to believe it is cool to behave that way and have that type of attitude Is this what we really want our society, especially our younger generation, to believe?

If we truly thought that television had no impact on viewers, why would companies spend billions of dollars on television advertisements? If commercials have an effect, then so do the shows that the children watch. For example, youngsters mimic many of the violent acts that they see such Naruto. According to the official U.S. Naruto Web site, the character is a 13-year-old aspiring ninja who likes to play pranks more than he likes to train. Cody, a fifth-grader, reportedly was playing among a group of children near his age late Saturday morning when the group came up with an idea inspired by the popular anime-style character “Naruto”. Cody died after mimicking his favorite cartoon character Naruto and burring himself with the help of some friends and his two brothers.

Children do learn from television especially when they lack direct exposure or firsthand experience with violent acts. These do take a toll on children and the way they will view life as they grow up. The Media is so worried about what type of money they are going to make there are no values in the majority of what they put out. I know that there are some children who are sweet, innocent, and full of dreams, hopes, laughter, and life. These kids have learned about their environment and values from their parents, not by watching television or effected by the media and what’s popular. As a parent, I will not show programs with bodies flying around the room and blood spurting ever where just because it’s what everyone else is watching. At this point, the parents' or should I say society role must be to watch television with their children so they can help children understand that violence hurts people physically and emotionally. So they will not grasp the values the media puts out there for them to figure out on their own with no guidance.

Our society should take a long hard look in the mirror; the values of today's youth are reflections of the values of their elders. We should remember that society and “Children are like wet cement whatever falls upon them makes an impression “quote by Dr. Haim Ginott. There are no values on the television and the violence is a very real problem is our culture. We most see that it only causes negative effects on our society. It is hard to tell if the problem is the media or if the problem is in our values as a culture. We must help turn back the growing culture of violence as quickly as possible. The human toll on our society is too great to look the other way.

Reference

www.Washigntonpost.com www.ABCNews.go.com www.Thinkexist.com www.TeenBootCamps.com Sanson, A., & DiMuccio, C. D. (1993). The influence of aggressive and neutral cartoons and toys on the behaviour of preschool children. Australian Psychologist, 28, 93−99.