The obvious answer to this question is, of course, yes, it is absolutely imperative. All children will turn on a television and watch it regardless of the content. Selectiveness is something they learn in their teens, but a lot of younger kids tend to gravitate to the screen and see what’s going on at the time, especially if they’re eating chips at the time.

After-school hours are the most popular times to watch television; That break hour between getting home from school and eating dinner is the time when many children are drawn to television like a magnet, and they sit there until they are physically dragged into doing their homework.

I only have one child, and actually started a family quite late in life, so it was a shock to me when I turned on children’s television to find that in my twenties and thirties, Watch With Mother had been superseded by Grange Hill and The Snotbags. . Shock was replaced by horror when I actually watched ten minutes of these shows and found the content full of profanity, slang, and offensive behavior.

There was no way I was going to let my three-year-old daughter watch this much gratuitous garbage, so they immediately turned off the television until I could gather some suitable material for her to watch on tape.

Several years followed in which my son watched pre-selected movies and recorded shows only. He only watched children’s television at his friends’ houses, and by the time he was eight years old, she was sufficiently prepared with respectability to be surprised at what passed for entertainment at other people’s houses.

Not that one wants to be a prude about such things, and certainly as children begin to approach adolescence, they need to be aware of what’s going on in the world. However, I do believe that a certain programming ethic is geared solely towards increasing viewing figures, and is in no way concerned with the development of the cultural well-being of children.

The show’s content is designed to shock and engage the viewer because, let’s face it, kids love scary things or blood and guts to liven up an afternoon in the dreary confines of a classroom. Of course you do, it’s what children do. However, there is no need to provide them with an excess of things, and we must remember that we, as adults, are supposedly in charge of what our children watch and when.

At a minimum, we should strive to be aware of what our children are consuming in the form of entertainment, and remember that children absorb not only information but also impressions, language, and styles of dress, walk, and talk.