Fear Factor: Protecting Your Kids in a TV Culture

By Dr. Dave Currie, with Glen Hoos

Like it or not, Hollywood is having a powerful influence on your family.

Though debate continues to rage about the extent to which what we view on TV affects our behaviour, there is no question that the entertainment industry has a profound impact on the values of our culture. Culture impacts individual people, and individual people make up families. That gives Hollywood an enormous amount of pull, for good or for ill. More often than not, it's the latter.

In the world according to Hollywood, there is no moral compass. The standards are always shifting, and unfortunately they're shifting away from family values. And so we see wild living held up as the norm: free sex with no consequences and no responsibility. We see one-dimensional female caricatures, where women serve little purpose beyond being eye candy, trophies or helpless victims in need of rescuing. We see male characters that are macho, tough and conquering, but emotionless. And we see marriage portrayed as boring, restrictive, dysfunctional and temporary.

Delve into the lives of the stars, and you'll find that their real lives are even worse. To pick one among many examples, Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock had three weddings last year to prove that they really meant it. Their marriage lasted 4 1/2 months.

How do you keep your family from being swept away by the tidal wave of trash coming through the screen? Here are some suggestions.

Accept That Hollywood's Influence is Here to Stay

This is a situation that isn't going away anytime soon. The pervasiveness of the media is on a continuous upward swing. Already, many kids can be found watching movies and music videos on their iPods during lunch hour at school. Within a couple years, they will be taking live TV with them wherever they go, broadcasting through their handheld devices. If you think pop culture is intrusive now, just you wait.

Neither is it likely that we are going to see an improvement in the kind of content that is being provided. If human history tells us anything, it's that these things generally continue in a downward spiral. TV and movie producers are driven to provide what sells, and unfortunately what sells is sex, violence and profanity.

As parents, it may be tempting to try to bar the door to protect our kids. Out with the TV, out with the iPods, out with the Internet! Maybe if we raise our kids in a bubble they will escape the pull of the culture.

While the intention is noble, it's a flawed strategy. The world isn't going to go away just because we shut it out. This is the culture your kids are going to live in when they move out of your house. Even now, they are going to encounter it at school and with their friends. Yes, we must take steps to shield them from much of what is out there; our greatest responsibility, however, is to equip them to respond to these influences appropriately and wisely.

Get a Moral Compass

It starts by building a moral foundation for your family. As a mom and a dad, you need to come together and determine the values you want your kids to adopt. What are the non-negotiables in your home? In a world where the standards are constantly shifting, what are the stakes that you are going to drive into the ground?

If you've ever watched a welder at work, you've likely been warned not to look directly at the blue flame coming from the torch, even though your eye is immediately drawn to it. If you look at it without a tungsten shield, you can go blind. It will actually burn your retina.

Your moral compass is just like that shield: it keeps you from getting burned by looking at dangerous images. It's what will guide you in your response to the media onslaught, and it's what will give your kids the character and fortitude to stick with their beliefs when the culture attempts to sweep them in the other direction.

For our family, we've found the Bible to be the best source of direction for our lives. That's what we use as our compass - our guiding principles. Whether or not that's where you choose to turn, you need to determine the moral standards by which you and your family are going to live - standards that aren't relative, but absolute.

Start Early

Though the impact of media influence is seen most clearly in the teen years, you have to start facing these concerns when the kids are much younger than most parents think. The harmful patterns that culminate in adolescence start in childhood, so waiting until they are teens to set healthy and wise guidelines is far too late.

It's much like a frog in a kettle. If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will hop right out. But if you put it in a pot of warm water and then gradually raise the temperature, it will eventually boil to death. That's the power of the media. It accumulates over time as people become desensitized to its effects.

We all know of parents, and to some extent we did it too, who use the media as a babysitter to amuse their kids, whether it's popping in a video or just letting them watch TV to keep them occupied. Nice break, right? A much deserved rest, no doubt, but at what cost? This is where the start of unsupervised viewing takes place, and here we need to be cautious.

We need to always keep working towards helping the child develop a host of interests beyond the passive, electronic options. Activity and creativity in a variety of things is so much better for the child than mere stimulation and entertainment. It takes more work for the parent but over the long haul, you'll like the results in the character of your child.

Watch Together

Rather than taking the easy road by using the TV as a babysitter, make TV time a family event. Watch programs and movies together, and then discuss what you've seen. Talk about what is being communicated, why it is or isn't healthy, and what they think about what is being portrayed. Look beyond mere content to uncover the worldview that is being proclaimed through the story and the characters, and determine whether or not it jives with your own.

Set your media-viewing criteria as a family. Talk about why certain things aren't appropriate in your home, and don't hesitate to fast-forward through questionable spots. Of course, as teenagers they are less likely to watch movies with you, especially if you are always moralizing or stopping the movie. But if it's done right and done early, you will actually find your teens fast-forwarding through parts of movies themselves. Be sure as well to stay on top of what movies your kids are attending and renting. You have a right to be asking these questions.

As for specific viewing standards, it comes back to your moral compass. Only you can determine the limits for your kids. For us, we had two non-negotiables: no skin and no horror movies. As a counselor, I know just how easily lust and fear can be stimulated by questionable scenes.

Show Them a Better Way

You can counteract the lies your children are being fed through the screen by teaching them the truth. They need to know that real life doesn't work like Hollywood . Warn them of the power of the media's influence, and the necessity to be careful about what they expose themselves to. Teach them the value of respect; help them learn to discern the difference between right and wrong.

Guiding your children safely beyond the harmful effects of the media world involves location, limits and life lessons:

The right location of the media source yields good supervision. That means keeping the TVs and computers in a public location in your home, so they're not getting into trouble behind closed doors.

Realistic limits create safe parameters. Work with your kids to develop reasonable boundaries and safeguards, and make sure they understand the reasons behind your rules.

Positive life lessons will guide them when they are gone from home and away from your direct influence. You will not always be around to make decisions for them, so you must prepare them to make wise choices on their own.

When it comes right down to it, there are three ways in which we as parents can respond to our TV culture. We can turn a blind eye and hope our kids come through it in one piece. We can shield our children completely, protecting them in the short-term but leaving them ill-equipped to stand on their own. Or we can embrace the situation as an opportunity to mould them into people of character who are prepared to stand against the tide of negativity and poor morality. The first two options are much easier, no doubt, but it is in the third that we really fulfill our calling as parents. Which will you choose?

Dr. Dave Currie is the National Director of FamilyLife Canada. He and his wife Donalyn live in Abbotsford, BC and are regular speakers at FamilyLife Marriage Conferences. Dave is also the host of Marriage Uncensored with Dave and Christie, a television program airing weekly across Canada.