The Influence of Violence on the morality of children
Christine Thomas-Govan
This article is the result of a Child psychology assignment I completed which discusses the factors affecting the development of morality in children.
Much domestic violence arises from poverty, racism, unemployment, substance abuse and inadequate or abusive parenting(1.).
Children exposed to domestic violence due to the above conditions can have problems with attachment (2.). This lack of attachment to others interferes with moral development. If a child lacks attachment skills to others then they find it difficult to learn love, respect and trust for others. A child can grow to become morally bankrupt as they live life with little regard for the values of those around them.
Abusive parenting can consist of power-assertive discipline which includes physical punishment. This form of discipline actually causes children to remain morally immature.
Violence interferes with a child’s ability to learn and practice important social skills (3.). Skills such as managing their emotions and controlling their anger are impaired.
Exposure to violence within a community and the availability of firearms encourages anger and violence (4.).
Children within that neighbourhood exhibit hostile aggression as they use violence in order to accomplish their goals.
Violence in television is prevalent in todays media flooded society and can also have a negative influence on children.
“By the age of 18 the average child will have seen 26,000 killings on TV “(1.).
This high exposure can lead to desensitization among many children who are frequent TV viewers. The flood of violence suspends their sense of reality and they can feel less empathetic toward others as a result.
The suspension of reality affects their moral judgement and they can’t understand the serious consequences of real life violence such as injury, jail and/or death.
Exposure to violence on TV can also see children copy what they see and behave aggressively. It is enticing for children to imitate the actions of their favourite character or superhero (batman or ninja turtles).
Copycat violence does not just cause our children to display aggression. Watching aggressive acts by our favourite characters changes the way children respond to real life situations.
Rather than talk about an issue or negotiate children become incensed more quickly and their anger can be out of proportion to the actual event.
Parents have the ability to decrease the influence television has on their children
To reduce the impact of violence on TV parents can obviously censor their child’s viewing habits. They can be discouraged or banned from watching shows or films that deemed violent or inappropriate viewing.
A parent can use cognitive reasoning with a child that is imitating aggressive behaviour. Pointing out that punches and ninja kicks cause others pain could decrease the aggressive behaviour.
Parents could sit and watch real life medical shows with their children in an endeavour to improve their level of empathy towards victims of violence.
TV violence lacks a sense of reality. Children can be shown that violence is real and has serious consequences. This may help their understanding and encourage more empathetic behaviour.
There are strategies that society can implement to help discourage aggression and encourage pro-social behaviour in our children.
As a society we can provide more guidance and support to parents with regard to teaching them how to deal with aggression and encourage more pro-social behaviour in our children.
The government could develop an education program consisting of information to be provided to parents via the community or through schools and the education system.
Community centres and/or school Parents and friends committee’s could hold information nights to share the program.
This program could involve ways of recognizing which style of aggression your child uses (instrumental, hostile etc) and methods of coping(reasoning, inductive discipline etc).
It could then give advice on ways to encourage pro-social behaviour in your child. The method of rational discipline could be explained so parents know to teach their child to think of another child’s perspective and learn to comfort and say sorry.
Parents could also be shown to encourage and support their child through positive reinforcement and praise where appropriate.
Teachers could teach children how to be kind to others and not display aggression as part of a child’s everyday learning.
In particular books, DVD’s and television shows could be shown to children that have kindness and empathy as part of their narrative. The teacher could read books to the children that have a have a storyline that shows pro-social behaviour.
DVD’s and TV show’s could be shown in class time that display children co-operating with each other. They could also display the consequences of aggressive behaviour and how it affects others.
This subliminal form of learning would be of benefit to the children in helping to encourage pro-social behaviour and lessen anti social behaviour.
Censoring what our children view in the media via books, magazines or tv shows is another way of encouraging pro-social behaviour and lessening aggressive behaviour.
Supposed childrens DVDs these days include violence and anti social behaviour. Popular DVD’s like “The Incredibles” and “The Lion King” show the characters displaying aggression and violent behaviour toward each other.
Animated shows such as “Jimmy Neutron” and “Power puff girls” include a lot of narratives such as revenge and aggressive play.
Magazines articles are often about true life violent crimes such as assault and rape.
By choosing to help our children avoid the anti social behaviour in these forms of the media we are reducing their exposure to it. Less exposure would surely lead to less opportunity to copy such behaviour.
By encouraging the elements of the media that portray people as co-operative, kind and helpful we are increasing the likelihood that our children will display this kind of behaviour.
Bibliography
www.naeyc.org/about/positions. 1.
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp 2,3 and 4.