I’m finishing up my first draft of my Guidebook for parents and have been working on the tedious task of putting together my reference list.
Last week, I was spending time at the Kaiser Family Foundation website reading up on TV and kids. They have done several studies on media and kids and it was very interesting to learn just how TV is impacting our kids.
Get a load of this – Kaiser’s Vicki Rideout said: “What we found is that, overall, when you turn on the TV today, whatever time of day it is, whatever kind of show you’re watching, the odds are about 1 out of 2 that it’ll be a show with some kind of sexual content, and in the most watched shows, those on prime time, about 2 out of 3 shows have sexual content.
But the thing about it is, that very few of those shows, less than 1 out of 10 in fact, include any reference to what we might call safer sex type issues, a condom on a bedside table, a character who decides to postpone having sex, or some reference to the possible risks of unprotected sex.” I cut this from here: http://www.kaisernetwork.org/reports/1999/02/kr990209.3.html
That’s a lot of sex on TV! There was also a recent report that found that kids who watch unsupervised TV in any amount, have sex about one year sooner than kids who watch supervised TV.
This isn’t all that surprising, considering those kids who watch unsupervised TV probably have a lot of unsupervised time in general. And as you may recall, unsupervised time is a great time to have sex!
So now that you know about all the sex on TV? What is your plan? Will you let your kids watch any TV, any time? Let me know.
