by Nurul Fathnie Rustam
Media plays the biggest role in our daily lives be it broadcasting, print or the new media, bring both negative and positive effect especially on children’s behaviour. Everything that children see or hear in the media early on in their lives affects them in certain ways. Positive parenting role models indicate that in the best interest of our children, we should limit their exposure to violent acts. However, violence is one of the most popular forms of entertainment and you can get violence genre movies or video games easily. This is what the young generation is getting themselves involved with and most parents are not paying attention in this matter as for them, when their child is happy watching anything on the screen, it would be okay. Recently, with the help of internet and the technologies, people nowadays especially young kids can access to any forms of violence content easily.
It is being said that the exposure to media violence increases the risk of aggressive behaviour on certain children desensitizes them to more violent and it makes them believe that the world they are living now is meaner and scarier place to live in. When children consume too much of violent content, it will stuck in their head and they will tend to do any violent act just like what they have seen in the media. Study shows that, performing violent acts in video games are contributing more on children’s aggression than passively watching violent acts on television. This is because in video games, women are usually portrayed as the victim and the male character can do any violent and abusive acts on the female character. Just like what the famous game such as Grand Theft Auto is portraying. It promotes prostitution, theft and violent behaviour. Thus, if the children are overly consumed of violent act like this, this will contribute to any form violent acts in reality.
Children will misbehave and it is pretty normal for a child to have occasional outburst. However, repeated disruptive behaviors may signal a behavioral problem. This behavior may include repeated arguments, tantrums, hostility toward parents or authority figures and bullying behavior such as picking on small or younger children. It also includes causing or threatening harm to pets, other people or even themselves. In older children and teens, early sexual activity, smoking, alcohol and drug use can be signs of a problem. Skipping school and lying may also indicate a behavioral problem. According to Medline Plus, if a child or teen has a pattern of hostility, aggression or disruptive behaviors lasting six months or longer, the child may have a behavior disorder. Imagine having our children spending most of their times playing violence video games, watching 18sg or 18sx rated series, surfing violence stuffs on the internet without. What is worst? When we as parents do not even have ample time to spend our precious time together with our children until we do not have the idea with what are the things that our children have been up too behind our backs.
Hence, in conclusion, as an adult be it as parents or even older siblings in the family, we should play the biggest role to keep on tracking what are the current obsession of our children or young siblings. We should know what are the games that they are playing, what kind of website they surf, who are their peers or stuff like that. It is not like we want to be overly protective, we just need to control their activities especially if it is involving any violence content. We know how kids can grasps anything that they see and listen quickly and precisely, hence we should be careful with that. Showing them violence acts via the media or video games, will only make it worst.