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<title> No violence on television is an impossible mission. </title>
As the number of TV channels are increasing so is the possibility to be exposed by violence on television. There are action films where the main characters shoot peoples' head off for fun, and news reports on victims of war that show dead bodies scattered on the ground from missiles "aimed for a military object". This is what children throughout this country are watching daily. In this essay I will discuss violence on television, parental responsibility, and problems with censorship. 

Quite a few argue that children are negatively affected by violence shown on television and it should therefore be restricted. I do not believe that the violence on television I have seen throughout my childhood has affected me badly. However, I did not watch TV as much as most children do today and I rarely watched violent programs without any parent or older sister being present. Children should of course rather watch less violent and more pedagogical programs, but I do not believe that TV violence would create violent behaviour among children as some people say. Nevertheless there is a risk that a child may be afraid after having seen scary films, and have nightmares. Especially if no parent is present.

Many children of today spend a lot of their spare time in front of the television set. Their parents work a lot and have to do housekeeping when being home. There is not much time left for spending with their children. Therefore the television set turns into a babysitter who takes care of entertaining the children. No one takes responsibility for what is being seen. Parents should at least be aware of what their kids are watching. It is important that parents teach their children to separate fiction from reality and are around to explain for instance why people are killing each other on the news. However television channels have a responsibility of what they show and on what time they show inappropriate programs for children. 

Beginning to use censorship by installing a V-chip like some have suggested in the USA would create many difficulties. One problem is, what should be considered as violent enough not to be allowed for children to watch? The news often has news features on wars, which show people killing others. In many cartoon films the main theme consists of that one character always get beaten up. Do these examples, the news and cartoon films, contain enough violence to be erased by a V-chip? It can be hard for someone to decide what sort of violence is harmful for children. And technology has definitely not come that far yet to make decisions like these. The best ones to decide are parents. They are responsible for their children's lives and should of course also be responsible for what their kids are watching. Another problem of censorship is, that when it has started as a protection for children from violence, politicians might want to control what all citizens should watch or not watch. We have the right to free speech and free press etc, and should therefore have the right to watch what program we want to, without that it has been censored for political interests.
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