TELEVISION is GOOD or BAD?

Television can be great for children.There is a huge amount of educational content out there and many popular TV shows provide great entertainnment and introduce children to story-telling, stimulate imagination and social and moral reasoning. For busy parents, TV can be a ready-made babysitter and provide some child-free time.

However, almost everybody agrees that too much time spent in from of the TV is not very good for the children (nor it is good for teenagers or adults, for that matter).

TV works ists negative effects in several ways. Firstly, time spent watching TV is time that is not available for other activities that are necessary for development, particularly outdoor play and other physical activities. TV watching can get in the way of reading, social interaction and study too. Secondly, lengthy and indiscriminate watching of television leads to exposure to a lot of inappropiate content.

Ungoverned and excessive television viewing by our children today is giving rise to a number of emotional and healthy problems. Children who consitently spend hours in front of television screen are more likely to be obese and have unhealthy eating habits. Viewing violent programmes on it tends to make them aggressive and give a distorted view of the world around them.

Parents should govern the quality and  quantity and limit the time that their children spent watching TV. Only allow television after the household chores are done and homework is finished. It's alright to let kids watch some special programme once in a while during study hours but do not let it become a norm. By limiting the time, children learn to choose which programmes they really want to watch.

If they have a garden or backyard, they should encourage their children enjoy nature by helping them set up a tree house and grow plants, besides, the others outdoor activities which results in less television viewing.

It's a good idea if parents make a timetable of programs that are good and informational and stick it somewhere near the television set. Switch on the set only when the program is on air. Make sure that the TV is switched off as the agreed program is over instead of channel sufirng.

And it's a bad idea that children have a television set in their bedrooms. It will be better for them if they spend their free time, reading books and playing puzzles, board games, etc.

It is very convenient to let the television become an unpaid babysitter. Parents must get involved with their kids an play with them. Spending quelity fun time with parents can make children forget what shows are on and they won't fell as if they are missing out on anything special.