HAS YOUR television set become nothing more than a cheap babysitter? Have you ever wondered what all that bad language, sex and violence does to your children's behaviour?
The signing of the Children's Code of Programming yesterday by the presidents of the Media Association of Jamaica and the Jamaica Association of Community Cable Operators is intended to herald a new attitude toward programming, ensuring that unsuitable content is kept off the airwaves until past children's bedtime.
However, according to several officials who attended the signing, parental responsibility was still seen as a vital part of ensuring that television and radio did not lead to the detriment of the society and the children's development.
Leila Ismail Khan, UNICEF representative, urged parents "to become aware of the new programming code and to monitor their children to ensure that they are not exposed to negative influences that might affect their mental and moral development". Colin Innis, the Community Cable Operators' president, reminded parents that new scheduling and rating codes would require active parental control over what was seen and what was heard.
Recent research compiled by Dr. Maureen Samms-Vaughan, UWI child health and development expert, illustrates what many have feared concerning the effects of what she termed "shoot 'em up, kill and death programmes" and content saturated with sexual incidents, alcohol advertising, drug abuse, violence and adult language.
From surveys conducted in the Kingston and St. Andrew area, Dr. Samms-Vaughan concluded that children watching over 20 hours of television per week did not perform as well in school tests, with reading, spelling and maths all suffering. According to Dr. Samms-Vaughan, attending church, reading books and being involved in clubs and other constructive activities engineer better school performance than slumming it in front of the TV.
Children who watch more than 20 hours of television per week suffer also from withdrawn behaviour, somatic complaints (complaining of feeling ill when there is no illness), anxiety and significantly more social problems than those who watch television in moderate amounts.
"The types of shows associated with problem behaviour were action shows Surprise, surprise!" she quipped, "and soap operas Surprise, surprise! and talk shows."
Action shows, favoured by boys, are guilty of causing problems such as social, thought and attention span problems as well as triggering aggression. Soap operas, which Dr. Samms-Vaughan criticised for depicting extra-marital sex eight times more than sex within marriage, can also lead to social problems in children. According to her research, girls were more drawn to soap operas and talk shows.
With 95 per cent of children in urban areas and 80 per cent of children in rural areas having access to television, and Jamaican children watching on average over 15 hours of television a week, Dr. Samms-Vaughan advised parents to "support the use of programming codes" and set a limit of one to two hours of television per day for their children.
"Television should never be used as a babysitter," she concluded.
She recommended also that parents discuss programmes with their children to help distinguish the boundary between fiction and reality and warned against allowing televisions in bedrooms.
