How the entertainment is challenging the hard work you put in as a parent

Not yet at a stage where I need to worry about what my kids are watching on TV or on tablet, ‘coz on most days their screen time is limited to Peppa Pig having fun with her brother George or Daniel Tiger frolicking with his friends, who entertain them while they are getting dressed for pre-school. On other days they prefer to play some online games where they trace some letters, pick the odd one out, or solve a puzzle.

But they observe. And they remember. With each passing day they learn something new, form an opinion or adopt one. A lot of influence (much more than we are willing to accept) comes from visual media. Agreed, there are a lot of good things they teach the kids in a fun way, but there is no denying that a great proportion of their content blurs the divide between good and bad, between right and wrong, and strikes me as highly disturbing for the fertile minds of children. Completely ignoring the physical side effects — increasing rates of myopia in children and other problems that come with a lack of physical activity — I’d like to share some misconceptions that these media are loading our kids with and messing up their heads:

1) Beauty is skin deep:

Across entire spectra of entertainment, it is external appearance and beauty that is revered. The ones who are truly beautiful within, are the ones who are shown in miserable conditions. Are we raising kids to appreciate what’s outside, without any consideration to character? Are we passing them a message that physical beauty is a cure to all suffering? We are not only breaking their self-esteem, but also pushing them towards the extremes of self-hatred or superiority ego. Either way, it’s not good. Research shows that atleast 90% of people hate something about their appearance. Not surprising, is it?

2) Mean ones win, nice ones lose:

Gone are the days when movies and TV shows would stick to victory of good over evil….. It is an era of new and innovative entertainment. It’s become a trend, and a perfect award-winning formula to repeatedly honor the bad and batter the good. Oh poor little minds!! They get so confused by the disparity in what they are taught and what they see and experience. And when faced with a situation in life where they have to make a difficult choice, they are tempted to choose the wrong, yet easy, path. Guess where the inspiration comes from!?!

3) Instant gratification is very important:

Whether it is the instant result of a push of a button of video games or a touch screen of tablet, it brings a certain amount of impatience in the kids. You may argue that it improves your reflexes but constant fluctuation of feelings while playing those games, in addition to the reactive, impulsive and fragile nature of relationships shown (and even justified) on screen, make them want to pursue instant gratification, by any means. Isn’t it evident in the increasingly common random shootouts by “normal” young people?

4) It’s OK to be selfish, and it’s OK to go to any length without any moral reserves:

Not just the movies and TV shows, but even news and media, forego their duty of providing unbiased information, and paint their own picture. News remain news or fall into oblivion depending on which political party, class, religion or sect is involved. Dressed under the garbs of promoting tolerance and acceptance, it breeds a slow explosive of intolerance and regress. As an individual or as a nation or even as humanity, we can’t go too far if we leave our moral values behind.

5) Most important things in life are money, power and pride, and not love, family and gratitude:

It seems to be an unspoken rule in all the stories and the media that money, power and pride can take you to great heights. In addition to the omnipresent movies and TV shows, each and every country can boast of its own national #presstitute it can rely on to spread intolerance and unrest. They create not only daily stories, but they rewrite history in the direction steered by the flow of power and money.

Those naïve and malleable minds, who are starting to experience life outside the cocoon of parental guidance, and who are just starting to form their own opinions about the world, all this entertainment and all this information (and mis-information thereof), confuses them about right and wrong, because mom and dad set a different standard of behaviour, while that is not obviously what’s gonna get them something they want. The distrust towards parents and the disdain towards parental advice starts there. Hormones and age, the most commonly blamed reasons, are only additive, not causative factors.