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<title> Children and violence on television. </title>
In an article, 'Locking out violence' written by Gina Bellafonte in 1995, an antiviolence chip or a v-chip is discussed. A v-chip was proposed by President Clinton to protect children form violence on television. A v-ship is a computer chip, which is installed in the television, and lock out programs or films with a certain level of violence. This v-ship would be a good complement for parents who don't have the opportunity to check what their children watch at television. Opponents argue that this is governmental control, or censorship, and broadcasters claim that this would reduce their audience. However, 'This is not censorship. This is parental responsibility' according to Clinton.

In relation to this article I'm going to discuss how violence on television influence children. In the United States, for instance, the average child spend a lot of time in front of the television, namely four hours a day, referring to an article on internet. Furthermore, American children spend more time watching television than any other activity, except sleeping. At the age of six they have spent more time in front of the television than they will spend talking to their father in their lifetime. Firstly and mainly, I'm going to discuss how children are influenced by violence on television and violence in some video games. The second issue discussed here is what parents can do to decrease their children's exposure to violence on television.

I would say that violence on television might influence children in different ways. Whether we want it or not the television learn children how to behave and to react to events, especially young children who don't have anything to compare with. They can't differ between right or wrong until someone has taught them what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, it is likely to believe that children watching violence on television would adopt aggressive behaviours and attitudes. The risk may be small but it shouldn't be ignored. Everyone who has younger brothers and sisters or children, knows that they sometimes imitate heroes in different programs. Children identify themselves with the characters and want to become like them. 

Everything children, and adults as well, watch on television go into the unconscious. This could form a child's personality, without it's knowledge of course. However, these events or ideas can influence children to act and react in certain ways, and maybe they don't react at all because they are used to see a lot of violence everyday. Children who watch a lot of violence become more desensitised to real world violence. It could also make children look at the world as a more dangerous place than it really is. Furthermore, they can also develop a fear of being victimised by violence.

Video games is another source of violence on television and I would say that video games influence children as well. I want to illustrate this by an experience I've had myself. Me and my boyfriend played a video game called 'Tomb raider'. It is a strategy game where you solve mysteries and to do that you sometimes have to shoot animals like birds, dogs, monkeys and even humans sometimes. We played this game for hours until we went to bed. The following day we continued, and so we went on for a couple of days more or less intensively. Consequently, I started to dream about this game and I dreamt that I was the girl in the game. Well, when my mother drove me back to Uppsala, after the Christmas holidays, I sat looking out of the window and there was a bird flying in the air, frightfully my first reaction was to shoot the bird! Of course I would never do that but even me 'a nice friendly girl' had this instinct and therefore, I believe the influence video games have on children could be enormous. However, the time spent on the game are of course of importance, but anyway I think young children could be seriously influenced by video games if I who is twenty-three are.
So, what parents can do to make their children's exposition to violence less dangerous would be to watch television together with their child. Moreover, it also give the parents the opportunity to explain the violence and to tell the differences between right and wrong. Another important factor, as I have pointed out earlier, is the time spent in front of the television. It is important that parents restrict the amount of hours that the child is allowed to watch television. As many as four hours a day, as the American children watch television, is too much in my opinion. Children could become passive and therefore, alternative activities are a good solution to the problem as a whole. Alternative activities could be to let the child play with other children or the parents could do things together with the child, for instance play board games or draw pictures. These activities would stimulate the imagination of the child and make it more creative. 

To be sure that your child isn't badly influenced by violence on television, the best thing is to have a good relationship with the child and try to spend as much time as possible together with it. However, it isn't possible to watch television together all the time, but I think you should make sure you know what the child is watching while your not there.
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