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In a book "Living Joyfully With Children" the authors suggest that
shielding children from violence would contribute to a more peaceful
society, because they would internalize non-violence as the norm.
Mary Ellen
Neglect Not The Gift That Is In Thee

>There's lots of time to come to grips with evil...but the shallow,
cartoon,
>television fictional evil seems a lousy introduction. I think kids
should be
>spared gratuitous evil and violence as much as possible. Television
gives a
>grotesquely distorted view of reality. The more television people watch
the
>less accurate view of reality they have.

I think it may be easier for children to understand that a story from a
book is "fiction" (although of course not all books are fiction). My
four year old has a hard time understanding that even a cartoon character
on TV is not "real". Besides, when we are reading to pre-reading
children, we have the option of skipping parts that we don't want them to
hear.

>>>It may certainly be true for people who accept "television reality" as
"real
reality" (I can't believe I just created that abysmal phrase <g>) but
watching television doesn't create people with distorted reality, any
more
than reading fantasy novels or Winnie the Pooh leads to such.
Pam, finally on digest and able to keep up. ;)

As all in life, there is a continuum from one extreme to another. I
don't believe that seeing an occasional act of violence on TV will turn
someone into an ax murderer, but what possible good can come from seeing
hours of TV violence or reading lots of violent stories?

To respond to an older post about Arthur: The creators may see it
otherwise, but I feel they promote the normality and accepted ness of an
unhealthy sibling relationship between Arthur and DW.
Mary Ellen
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