The Group; TV, Children, And Violence; The Group: TV, Children, and Violence

I think part of the reason it's getting so much press attention is that it's getting to feel the same thing that we're feeling and have felt for some years now in the United States and that's arising in violence among youth particularly the very young youth. And it's a good question as to why that's happening. Is it related to television that it happens much less often with guns because there are many fewer guns available in the UK than there are in this country so isn't it true that the violent crime is still violent crime but it's not just gun related illnesses. Sure. I think it's interesting the point that you mentioned. That the introduction piece seemed to imply that somehow these people are going to look like one headed monsters or be different in some way that we can pick out and that they're not like the rest of us and there's some way that they're weak they're defective and that they can be isolated and separated from society and I think that prevents people from having to look at the fact that it could be any one of us any one of us under some circumstances could become violent. Now to what extent do these things that we allow our children to

experience contribute to the likelihood that one of them is going to be violent. Actually Memphis members have that movie the bad seed as if they were something you know in this child from right from birth that was going to cause I can't remember what she did but I remember the name of the movie and that reinforces what you're talking about it's sort of excuses citing excuses everything that goes on in the world from the behavior of people who are in there. However it's not uncommon for 10 year old boys to have urges such as the need to experiment with pain in other words. And to experience the thrill if not pleasure at seeing some power being exerted over a helpless living thing is that the that it is high things it has a cat's tail saying frumps literally absolutely or putting the little kitten in the freezer accidentally overnight. You wonder how accident with actually zero and it's usually boys mind you. Goods Now what if what is there is there research and that it's usually boys. Yes yes that will act out those impulses.

Yes I think we can look to television to some of the answers for that too because you see a lot of images on television in which like the Incredible Hulk which some years ago was the leading show for young children in America and it shows that this mild mannered man like Bill Bixby gets angry enough. And just provoked enough he turns into an animal and it's a convenient mistake that I think we hold in society that a violent person has to be somehow completely different than ourselves and it's a myth because the truth is in not and the blame is not in your stars but in yourself and we should begin to look at within ourselves within our families and our children and the experiences they have. Had to see where the roots of this conference happens is usually and one hopefully believes set limits and the children internalize them. In my defense limits have not been internalized by the age of 19 I think you can expect that they will be acting out current as a state and then 11 and 12 and I think it's

not no accident that certainly here in our community here we see younger and younger people involved in violent acts and I think you'll find that what's a mouse around and has wings. People are beginning to show it you know over an inch. But I'm not trying to blame for one minute the family is in the clear. His full two youngsters one doesn't know anything about them. I could hypothesize what kind of families they might come close your mind off of. I don't think we can sort of perhaps just something about that particular episode because we don't know anything about it. But but certainly in this country every time something peculiar happens relating to children you know a gun being used in a classroom or something. It it seems to be television that we talk about first and then we worry about the whether or not the family is dysfunctional together whether there are people home whether whether the idear of adequate health care and

policies that permit families to stay together. A part of it. We go right to television. And it does seem mostly go to prison is one of the most important babysitters for most children under don't smile we think. So I think that's right but I have the feeling that that if the children's lives were together if they were more equal distribution of wealth in this country if. If we had family leave policies that enable parents to be around for those bonding times more often that if children came first I guess that's why I spent the last year trying to get a new administration into the White House I just felt that children were on a back burner in every aspect of their lives I mean this this immunization problem is part of that I always thought why don't why don't they worry about their kids catching something you know is it because their kids are immunized therefore you can't get any kind of disease. And the same thing is true why don't they worry about the violence hitting them.

These people who who seem to extoll violence as a way of life. But I guess that I stop short of blaming television that's the. Even though I made my professional life talking about television to children that's sort of the last thing I want to blame because I think it let everything else off the hook. And really it's really true that we need to be. Careful in terms of where there's any kind of backup to something you said and this is the whole notion that children you know come out of families and you know what's going on inside of these families or children you know come from and come out of and I think you know the Belbek speak for a lot of kids it's a real experience it's a real experience in a father who's in the home who's not in control and they see that change and they live it in their mother's You haven't and you know we see it all the time the kind of violence that happens within the families of kids and you know if one is going to I think have this conversation about you know where do we lay the blame where do we

start. You know I think it's social programs help and looking at issues of class help. But I think you know if you kind of scratch through all those things you find you know issues of addiction firmly in place and it doesn't matter if you're rich or if you want more. Absolutely. You know the same behaviors are happening in families and you know some people have more resources to cover them up. You know they're not so much on the surface but it's still there. And so I think you know you're looking at television does let us off the hook because we can say it's it's out there somewhere. I'm just I think it's important not to try to lay blame at all on television or the family but I think we have to consider that television is a member of the family and that as a member of the family we can look to see how the family can take a can contribute to helping to prevent violence and we can look to see how television as a contributing member can interact with the family in helping to prevent violence

so there are certain there are some questions about to move it away from blame and into the realm of what can we do about it in life and that will make a difference. And television is one of the things that will make a difference. And there's groups that are working to help broadcasters think more often of getting strategies to deal with violence with with aggression. It's before it gets to be real. The kind of violence that ends up in your department I think there's a real tendency on the part of the lay public to want to extra lives to the cause or the blame if you will because and it gets harder with the 10 year old because it is hard to see them as evil beings No I don't think anybody believes that children are just born evil and didn't wake up one day and said You can't kill somebody today. And if you start looking at younger and younger children. If you don't start thinking what are we doing as a society it is contributing to the likelihood that this child sees violence as a solution. Then you want to blame something else and say oh it's this or it's this easy thing that's not a

part of anything that I need to change. I think that's why we see easy political solutions often offered that don't really address the problem whatsoever. And television is an easy thing to blame as well. I think the language is what I'm hearing is communication teaching how to communicate in every different manner with every different type of emotion. And children model themselves and the adults that they see a wrong absolutely both on television within the household at school in the government and you know we have deplorable examples of poor communication skills. We have deplorable examples of violence being used to sow issues or problems was at every level. I hope in reading the research does show the research doesn't show that children who watch a lot of violence then go pick up that. Some kind of weapon and go to a neighborhood but it does show they think violence is more likely to be a solution to problems that mean that the society is more violent that it is because if you live in some neighborhoods it's hard to think of it more violent than that but for

most of us we don't expect to get killed when we open the front door and that there are more cops and prisons than there are that that that's really part of how the world works. We know that television talk sense into wanting products and you know in 30 seconds you you develop a whole set of wants and so it's ridiculous to think the rest of it doesn't do any good. The point that someone made earlier about the amount of time the children are using television as a babysitter I think it is really important if you just assume the children get messages from their family from their community from church from school and everything. And those are sort of weighted according to the number of hours a child spends doing each one of them. It's obvious to me at least that the child can be influenced more by television if he watches it six hours a day. And that's going to contribute to the sense in his mind at least that when people get angry they go and beat up somebody that small or they use a weapon or they they do something to ensure that they get their way. And often there are no consequences for being violent. The show that I use as a example when I'm working with with adolescents who've been violent is the

A-team where they they fire you know hundreds of rounds of ammunition a minute and no one ever dies. You know no one would say oh it's what's interesting and that's why is that your plan. Shows the results of violence much more often than we do the network excuse very often for what they do in those programs as well. We don't show the worst parts we don't show the guts spilling out all over the sidewalk. Week that happens offstage. It should happen on the screen the way it should be normally I'm doing these nice somebody and and they're they they got it backwards. It's not only that violence is shown on television it's shown unrealistically in so many ways. For example you're going to watch television and learn from that. You would do I think it has happened in several cases recently you would think that the stranger in the night is the person you ought to fear most as a potential murder. And it's exactly the opposite is true the person who's closest to you is the one that you ought to fear the most. And you also would think that violence many kids think that violence doesn't hurt that it's clean it's at zero it's

priority that it's justified all of those things are shown over and over again in a glorified way and so if violence were shown on television but were shown in a realistic way I think it would have a very different message but instead it's been it's been this developed into law. Sometimes it's ok I mean the good programs the programs that you want to see are very often violent. I mean civil war is violent. The story of the civil rights movement in this country is violent and that's fine in that kind of context. And this just you know too much of the other stuff. But on the other hand we as a society in this country are too quick I think to say get it off the air that most people who worry about media and children want to either get rid of sex mostly the right. The right political part of the country wants to get rid of Sex and the more liberal people want to get rid of violence. But I think that

that's never been the right tactic. And with 500 channels with with if you you know you dial up what you want coming. We certainly are not going to be able to control the way the networks used to control television. So the kind of strategies that a lot of you would this table are working on. I had to help the society deal with with what we get on television with what the world is getting to look like seems to me to make much more sense. I stay here with some of the best ideas are for what the television industry could do that they're not doing. I mean one of the things just to put one on the table is to do a public health educational campaign. And I'm not talking about putting public service announcements on at 3am and calling that a public health campaign but rather showing the various ways in which television itself creates myths and the things that you can do to help prevent violence and we know a great deal about that already. And that's been very effective in Great Britain and other countries

but hasn't yet been explored very much in this country. And that's one thing that could. It's completely consistent with their with their mission and now with the children's television and it's a requirement by the law. They need to educate and inform young children. So the question is what are what are our stations doing to help you know the educate children. The House Telecommunications Subcommittee is going to have hearings with within next month I think certainly before the end of April on that children's television act and maybe pediatricians could really get together with some strategies for helping kids deal with violence the public health community free education community and and law enforcement. Sure. I had to really contact the committee. You don't want the government telling broadcasters what to do but as a as part of that hearing record that would be a nice resource if it had that kind of an attitude to it.

There's another thing I'd like to hear your opinion about too that's been suggested and that's to have just simple truth in labeling use plain English not the codes that are developed for the movie industry that we don't even know what it means for the ratings in the ratings. Right. But rather simply say graphic violence. And in fact you could extend that further as now the labeling is extending into the supermarket for facts that are harmful to your health. You could have a right along like a red light green light yellow light stuff light system that exists and I can see immediately. Yes because I think parents even trying to do their best job are often fooled by kindergarten house and buy homes and consumer activists too when peachy 13 started which is supposed to be. If you have even if you have a 13 year old they might not be the best thing for your kid I thought that meant it was good. Hi the big maven on on talking about what you and your immediate thought that meant it was OK. At 39 there and if you start putting out 13 year olds.

Yeah that kind of label and all it is designed to do I think is confuse that will maximize the audience in the movie theater. So it's like if Gore got in trouble isn't she wants to warn parents about the content of what's in music that kids listen to which I think is great if we're not going to censor music which I'm opposed to which I think you're one else here is we have to notify parents what's out there so they can make a judgment about rather than labeling jerk but I think they should. And there were words to those songs on the record cover or not but look I've been running all the time reading forever as I think of it and the lights and the stress the parents already under and there's a great deal more stress nowadays than they used or I think will help them cooperate and participate with the children's best interests at heart rather than feeling it's another hurdle to be crossed before they are able to know whether or not the treatment should be watching the programs or because one of the backs of the said earlier and that is really how you phrase but raise a thought in my mind that is do you really think television can play some kind of mediating role within

families. I don't know I think and I think really one of the biggest crimes about television is not just the violence that saw it although I think that does have an effect. Children and adults. But I think it's what's not on and the way in which programming is seen as entertainment alone in the United States by and large with a few exceptions like this program and and public broadcast and all to get rationing off. Yes that's right. And but it could I think bring parents and children together to learn from television in a very entertaining way. Sesame Street has done this for years now for decades and they've done it. They've Pike we've pioneered throughout the world the way of doing that that's being imitated and and developed further and adapted in other parts has been fairly soon. That's right and I think we have real good evidence to the programs that the community gets behind like the DARE programs in schools and Dr. Prothro still says violence prevention curriculum. Why can't those be on

television where it's brought up for the you know I want to discuss with was there no reason why they can't. This means that what you have to do with the new telecommunications world that's coming that new highway the all that noise is save enough space so have space for public telecommunications because if that's going to happen it's going to happen with public money. I mean it's you know this is a terrific time to talk about spending more public money on the other hand if we don't set up the reservation of space for that kind of thing. Have a conversation like this 10 years down the pike which will say with 500 channels was still not doing that kind of constructive step. That's going to happen when the Society says we care enough to take that on as a responsibility it is not going to happen when commercial interests say we care enough to save our children the way the commercial broadcasters have acted for the last 20 years I think makes a perfect case for public telecommunications and if and that's where your kind of

strategies are going to happen and prevention programs save money but it's not only about money they save lives and they say it's like immunisation a Celeron $610 down the biking route because I guess I'm somewhat skeptical because I think the industry itself has done a very poor job. In some sense kind of empowering the voice of common people. You know we even take a show like yours or any kind of show that is basically about exchanging information using the medium as a way of exchanging information to people. I mean you see who's at the table and you know who's not at the table who never gets to the table you know kind of common everyday parents who are trying to struggle with issues. And we we've kind of created this way through the media over a war of kind of really kind of stratified in the kind of knowledge in our society you know is there certain people who know if you just listen to them you know you could do better and just follow what they say instead of trying to figure out how to use the media to help people kind of start to construct their own eating and their own learnings in our own ways

and I don't think we you know what I think we have faith in the public enough to do that as a society. And your beloved Don't you think. The attitude of Clinton and this new politics where we jam up the Washington phone system because people are calling and where two way communication is going to be a thing of the future like teleconferencing only it will be in people's homes. Will will help set that up that if the television stations become a kind of electronic meeting place you have that kind of thing happen more often it seems to me that the narrower the number of channels the less likely we are to let the whole public in but that maybe come out of this in the technology. I think it's really using the technology to do. I don't care if you have or you could do it right now with a number of channels you have. You don't need more channels to figure out ways to bring people into the conversation. Mine would you would you need is a real

firm belief that real public discussion requires the public to deal with hard issues and hard choices like we can say here that we really don't want to in some sense censor television. I'm not sure that's really true. The general public you know. Oh I think the general public does want to censor. And so part of it did in some sense and we kind of cut them out of the conversation. But it's about who controls television and I think the thing about and it's it's very important to continually point out to the American public that we own the airwaves. Well there are going to be any away that's true there may not. But if we continue to respond as though we don't own them. But the operators of the airwaves I think have a responsibility and the responsibility is to open it up to the general public. But that's where I am. But that is what I think won't happen unless the public says that those are our channels and we're going to pay for them and we're going to do it. But that's where that's going to happen that's not going to happen. When when a company I want to mention some poor company but any

company can think of is determining when to use those airwaves to sell soap or to sell McDonald's or to sell whatever it is that's not the way you attract an audience for that commercial message otherwise it would be happening. Well the difference though is that it's been years and years that people been conditioned in this country to think that we're not the owners. If we can recapture some of the spirit I think of opening up the doors and having community meetings on television and participation I think there is some hope that we can begin to turn or turn this around and say that we want something for the money that we're already paying. And in the giving over one of the most valuable and one of the most scarce resources that we have the television stations are free but that means I think the best thing then you do is that you don't make them public trustees because they don't know what that means the broadcasters that you charge them for using the spectrum of what's left of the spectrum you have fees when they change stations and you use it for public

telecommunication. BILL MOYERS pressed very hard last CARNEY I think is really pressing for that for 20 years but this it ministration may be receptive to that in a way that and administrations have not been in the past. And that's something worth working for I think that's right. That would open up the options much more. Have TV's been used as a babysitter to the extent that it apparently has as families become more and more stressed and there is more single parent families and less available daycare that I think we really have to take a look at what's offered out there for the children and make sure there is something that providing a useful message and that's as you say going to take some money and work a cautionary note when I hit single parent families being brought up as being part of the problem. In general it's not so much they think represents the problem of parents who no longer monitor the children. There has been a certain amount of independence given to children the potence of orders on abandonment. I think we have to look at our child rearing techniques and other drug levels and realize that we have to parents have to take back responsibility and authority to some extent and I

think that therefore I would say with single parent families when you have a parent that is monitoring even a single parent what the child children are doing. They're more likely to look better than and that's the truth. And you can do it that way but it's not my thing because they're too busy how do you see mommy or doing all the things side of the home leaving the child to be babysat for by that nation or someone he doesn't care very much what the child is doing. I didn't mean to imply there is something inherently bad about a single parent family just harder there's less deficient in too but I think it does point to what is I find as a pediatrician is missing in a lot of families across the economic straits and it's really an absence of you know ensuring over the children I thought of something with with the kind of concern that people have now with when you talk about 10 year old children I mean whether that's true or not or young kids going to school elementary school with guns and then doing something awful. I I hear a lot of talk about moral development and that we have left the Marles and

the the sense of what's right and wrong out of how we bring up kids and I wonder why one kind of problem for me that could happen from that if it's if they start bringing religion into the schools for example as a way of solving the problem of kids not having been developed morally by their parents I mean you could you can have the curious solutions to problems like this it seems to make the society that you have to sort of worry about a little bit not to change the conversation. No I think on any one point of view is not going to solve the violence problem and certainly not even a religious one of you would solve that. And I'd hate to see that come into the school as a result of the problem. But I think that even around this table we can see that violence is a clear concern that cuts across disciplines and the only way we're going to solve it is to have pediatricians and public health professionals and their agreement on criminology.