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<title> Do violence create more violence? </title>
After having read the article "Locking Out Violence", written by Ginia Bellafante, which deals with the problem of protecting children from excessive violence on TV, I started thinking about what we think of as acceptable TV-programs, games and literature for children. I believe there are many parents that don't consider what it is that their children are watching. Many of the cartoons that children watch on TV or read in magazines are very violent and with this in mind I don't think it is so strange that there are so much violence among children. There is a saying that violence creates more violence and I think that is true. 
	I believe that there is an increase of violence among children nowadays. They beat and kick each other and don't seem to know how little is needed before there is a serious injury. I don't think they want to hurt each other, not even if they are angry. Instead, I don't think they know how badly hurt the other person can get from just one kick in the back, for example. And this I think is because of the violence they are confronted with from TV, video games, movies and comics.
	Especially in many cartoons there are excessive and unrealistic violence. The characters get beaten very badly, but seem to have cured themselves after only a couple of seconds. Take "Tom and Jerry" for example, Tom is always chasing Jerry, but Jerry is smarter than Tom and somehow it is Tom that gets beaten for example with a frying pan so he gets a flat head. But somehow he always gets back to normal after a little while and this is a bit unrealistic. I don't mean to point out "Tom and Jerry" as a bad cartoon. This is just an example of the violence you can find in cartoons. Of course, most children know that these cartoons are only fictional, but still, I don't know if children can tell what is realistic and what is not, when it comes to violence.
	If we look at the video games many children play, we find the excessive and unrealistic violence there too. Some video games are worse than others are, in some you have to kick your opponent or maybe even shoot him several times before he is defeated. Therefore I don't think it is strange that children don't know that it might be dangerous to kick each other and that they then might cause some severe injury. We can also find this excessive and unrealistic violence in movies that the children watch. Of course, most movies have been marked with a symbol with a recommended age, for example 15 years. Even many of the video games have been marked with a recommended age. But who is making sure that this recommended age is followed. On the cinema children aren't allowed to see movies with too much violence, but what is it like at home? As it said in the article "Locking out Violence" who knows what the children will do when the parents aren't in the room?
	The V chip that is described in the article is of course a way to avoid that the children watch violence on TV, but if we really want to protect the children from violence I think we has to do more than that. Another thing that very easily could be done to help protect the children from being influenced by too much violence on TV or in video games is to talk to them about it, both at home and in school. I think the children need to discuss the violence they see in order to know what is realistic and what is not and also to discuss if there is any occasion where violence can be seen as necessary and at which occasions you can manage without using violence. 
	Finally, I just want to say that I don't believe it is possible to avoid that the children watch violence, but I think we can prevent them from being influenced by it simply by discussing it with them, and thus get them to understand that the violence they are exposed to from TV, movies, video games and cartoons are not realistic and that violence isn't the best way to solve problems.
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