If they watch junk, they’ll flunk!!
Kids soak up television faster than kitchen paper absorbs household spills. Any parent knows it, and has seen it in children’s behaviour since the days of Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which turned my boys into hyperactive aliens until I carefully limited their TV time, and steered them back towards Postman Pat and Blue Peter. Now, however, the nation’s teachers are moaning that too much television is making life unbearable at school – transforming our little Siennas, Chloes, Joshuas and Mohammeds into a generation of foul-mouthed Vicky Pollards and Gordon Ramsays.
I know they’re right – because I have heard it, too. It’s not the same sort of swearing you used to overhear several years ago from the kids at the corner shop or the bus stop, who’d let a four letter word slip out, have a giggle and then instinctively hush up because adults were within earshot.
Nowadays, the swearing, aggressive, defiant behaviour is right in your face. They’re proud of it. It defines them. After all, it’s on the telly, isn’t it? It’s in everything from Eastenders to Big Brother – and irritating, anti-social behaviour is even celebrated on comedy shows like Little Britain and Catherine Tate! Rather like the teenage girls who wear bright pink tracksuits to school, with their hair scraped back into Croydon facelift pony tails, a nation of teenagers are emulating what they see on the box, never stopping to think that they are imitating parody. Catherine Tate herself might see the irony – that she’s helped mould a million kids who just ain’t bovvered – but I doubt her idols even understand the concept.
Last summer I took my younger boys and a group of their mates for a birthday outing to Alton Towers. As we neared the most hair-raising ride, the entire park seemed to echo with the loudest F-word, being screamed by multiple voices all at once, along with an enormous splash.
A bus load of about 30 youngsters had taken over the queue and were repeating the ride again and again, and every time increasing the level of expletives they yelled on the final plunge. You can just imagine the obscenities they spat at the other families trying to get a ride, or the poor assistants, until the heavies came. The most distressing aspect was their sheer arrogance. They weren’t kids being naughty, nor even hell-raising. They were just boorish, indifferent, and entirely self-centred.
This, according to the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, is what teachers are seeing in Britain’s classrooms – and they reckon it’s directly the fault of certain TV programmes which are hugely popular among children whether or not they’re meant to be viewed by the young, and regardless of the watershed, an increasingly irrelevant boundary since the advent of computer downloads and the BBC I player.
Their survey , of 800 teachers, showed that more and more kids are guilty of “general insubordination and supercilious retorts” – in other words, when asked about their homework, or told to be quiet, they’re answering back with popular catchphrases like “Am I bovvered?” or"Whatev-ah!"
Those who catch Jeremy Kyle – on weekday mornings – are more likely to respond by shouting, screaming and storming out of the classroom in a temper. One boy with behavioural difficulties apparently kept hitting himself on the head and saying "Doh!" – mimicking Homer Simpson.
In a Northamptonshire primary school, a classroom assistant said she had seen girls in Years One and Two (aged six and seven) acting out scenes from a soap storyline in which a teenage girl was abused by her stepfather.
And looking untidy and sloppy, the report says, is positively encouraged by Waterloo Road – the BBC1 drama about a comprehensive school. It concludes that kids “cannot see a difference between reality and reality TV, and the glorification of low culture and moral standards being displayed are seen as normal".
Two thirds of those questioned said Big Brother was the programme most likely to cause poor behaviour, followed by Little Britain and EastEnders.
So the union is calling upon broadcasters to clean up their act, cut out the bad behaviour and swearing, and make the sort of tv that will set an example to our kids, rather than teach them how to be unkempt, moronic hooligans.
I wish them luck.
In my experience, tv professionals simply don’t accept that they influence behaviour. They claim they merely reflect it. This, despite the millions spent on tv advertising designed to do just that – directly influence our perceptions and actions. They hide behind the same defence used by the gun lobby in America – that it’s not guns that kill, it’s people who pull the trigger.
So they argue, it’s not TV that causes social problems, it’s the way it is consumed in the home. Don’t blame us, they protest. Blame parents who allow their children to have TV in their bedrooms, switched on all day and night.
I chaired a debate at the Edinburgh TV festival some years ago on this very subject. The motion, that TV “has an undue influence on Britain’s kids” was howled down. At the time, I was the mum of three tv-watching toddlers who reacted to some cartoons like orange squash. For years, the food industry denied that the additives in some orange drinks were making kids hyperactive – but we parents knew! The reaction was almost instantaneous – within seconds they were literally scaling the walls and swinging from the curtains.
I have never allowed TVs or computers in my kids bedrooms. In fact, upstairs is a TV-free zone, since I decided to set an example and jettison mine, too. We have them downstairs, near the kitchen, so Mum can keep an eye on what’s being viewed. Occasionally, the kids protest, but ultimately accept that it’s one of the things I feel strongly about – and I do, vehemently, believe that allowing tvs and computers in kids bedrooms is opting out of true, responsible parenthood. It’s a selfish, ignorant abdication of your burden of duty. Whether we like it or not, TV is such a powerful presence in our homes that it has actually become a member of the family – a bit like the amusing but lecherous, alcoholic uncle who came to stay for a couple of weeks and has ended up living with you. Entertaining at times, he’s also a threat, and has a disproportionate influence on the more susceptible family members. And one thing’s for sure, you wouldn’t leave him alone with your children – and certainly not in their bedrooms!
For years, there’s been talk of installing “V chips” into televisions, which could allow parents to censor certain programmes from being viewed on that set. What a giant waste of time and money that would be. Recently, nearly 80 per cent of American parents claimed they were seriously worried about their children watching inappropriate TV programmes. That concern, however, strangely did not extend to them actually using the V-chip, even if they had one. If parents were really worried, is it really too much of an effort for them to switch the TV off, and play with their kids instead?
Looking to technology to provide the answer will simply absolve both parents and TV makers from their joint responsibility, to nurture a new generation of kids who understand how to behave – and how to switch the TV off!
I feel nothing but sympathy and pity for our poor teachers, who appear to be becoming the warning sirens for our society. Too many parents are doing a lousy job at home – letting TV become the child-rearer – a job for which it is ill-suited and irresponsible.
Swearing on TV should be banned, along with excessive violence and explicit sex. Let’s try it for a few years, and see if it makes a difference. A few years ago, it was the teachers who first called for better diets for our kids, when they saw a generation of children too lethargic to work, but munching their way through breakfasts and lunches comprising of crisps and cola. If they eat junk, they’ll flunk, the teachers warned. Perhaps we should heed their latest message - If they watch junk, they’ll flunk, too. |
