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<title> What is TV violence? </title>
How can parents protect their children from the increasing TV violence? How do they know what is dangerous and what is less dangerous for their children to watch? Maybe the most important question is; What is TV violence? Is it a cruel report from a war in Bosnia? Is it a movie about a serial killer or is it simply a cartoon with Donald Duck? What someone may think of as TV violence, is just entertainment for an other. In this essay I will discuss what TV violence is.

Many parents forbid their children to watch TV programs which contains to much violence. They switch of the TV when there are advisories that warn of excessive violence. But what about the daily news programs? I know a lot of parents who seems to think that it is good for their children to watch the news with its sometimes really frightening pictures. These parents wants their children to know the reality they are living in and they claim that children have to realise all the terrible things there are in life. I think that this seems like a good idea. However I can't help wondering how the news violence effect children? What are they going to think of adults? Are they going to be able to trust us or are they just going to feel very insecure about the whole world? 

What about fiction violence then? In every school yard (I don't think it matters in witch country) children play different kinds of violent games. Maybe they try out new kicks that they have seen on a "kung fu movie" or perhaps they are shooting each other with invented guns. Are these children doing this because they are mentally disturbed by the TV violence? I don't think so. Parents and other adults should not underestimate the children because in my opinion they often understand what is fiction and what is not. When I have watched TV with children and someone in the program is being hurt and there is blood the children have said: "it is just fake, everyone knows that it is just ketchup and not real blood". Even if the school-yard games sometimes seems really violent they are just games. The boy who aims with his invented gun at his best friend, would not dream of doing it in reality. 

Despite what parents may think is dangerous violence or not, I don't think that there is any parent who wants the child to be exposed to a lot violence. Naturally parents can't be with the children or young teenagers all the time. Even if they are not happy with what their children watches on TV they can't forbid them to watch. However there are other solutions that can help worried parents to control their children's TV viewing. One is the new antiviolence chip or the V chip (1 Ginia Bellafante, Time Magazine 1995). This new technology allows parents to lock out programs with a certain level of violence from their TV. The V - chip give parents the power to decide for themselves what rate of violence their children should or should not be exposed to. One big disadvantage with the V -chip, though is that it wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the violence in Terminator 2 and Schindler's list. 
This is a complicated question for parents. What are they going to allow their children to watch, what is going to hurt them and what is not? It's not always possible to control what the children are watching. My opinion is that it's important to remember that the TV is not a baby-sitter. As often parents have the time they should sit with their children in front of the TV. Then they could explain what's going on, what's real and why it is like that. 
1 Locking out violence- support grows for the v chip as a way to protect young viewers. Time Magazine 1995, volume 146, No. 4
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