Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 13, 1994 TAG: 9410150028
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CLAUDINE WILLAMS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Rimple, a member of the Virginia Association of Family and Community Education, led a two-day workshop for parents and teachers this week at St. Marks Lutheran Church. The workshop, which aimed to teach people about viewing television with children, was sponsored by the Roanoke Valley Community and Education Council (formerly Extension Homemakers).
The average American household has at least one television set turned on for approximately seven hours each day, Rimple told her audience of 14 on Monday night.
Used properly, television can stimulate a child's educational and creative activity, Rimple said. It can suggest new ways of seeing and understanding life.
Parents or adults need not watch every show with children, nor feel they have to approve of the content of every program, said Rimple, a mother and grandmother who lives in Norfolk. But when adults do watch with children, it's important that they speak up when something offends or impresses them.
"If children see anything on television you do not like, you have the opportunity to write the Federal Communications Commission," Rimple said.
"You don't need a large group to fight this. One person is as important as 10," she said. "The stations will listen. The legislators will listen. That is the law."
The seminar was part of National Association of Family and Community Education Week, Oct. 9-15.
The NAFCE, of which Rimple's organization is a state chapter, is concentrating its efforts on a children and television project that examines educational programs and TV viewing among children.
This year, the NAFCE interviewed more than 17,000 school students from ages 7 to 13. More than half of the children watched shows targeted to adults, Rimple said.
Advertisements also send messages to children, Rimple said.
"Commercials are so fast and domineering that if a young person sees a toy, they have to have it," she said. "It is up to parents to come up with a firm answer as to why that is not a good toy."
John Furrow, a teacher at the Roanoke Valley Performing Arts school, said he is concerned about older children who cannot separate reality from fiction in television.
"Kids have lost the whole idea of what is reality and what is not," Furrow said. "Whether they are watching the news or fiction, it is not reality to them. That is why the kids laugh at [the film] `Schindler's List.'"
The NAFCE provided the following portrayals of children's television savvy, based on age:
At 18 months: Most children can turn sets on and change channels. They have no real understanding of what they see on television, although program content may subconsciously influence them.
2 years: Probably making considerable use of television. Uncritical acceptance may lead to confusion or fear and a cloudy distinction between reality and fantasy. These children are developing mental abilities, not following a story. Recognizing familiar objects and scenes on television is an accomplishment that probably makes them feel good.
5 to 7 years: Start to understand relationships depicted on television. Enjoy slapstick humor with little sensitivity to relationships. Usually misunderstand satire and symbolic representation. Their limited ability to remember all elements of plot is weakened by the interruption of commercials. Notice separate events in a program but might fail to realize how they relate to each other.
7 years and up: Continually understand more of what is happening on television. Selectively realize which situations are real and unreal.
by CNB