Children do imitate violence they see on tv

Prof Robert Winston 

ONE of the most revealing pieces of television I have watched recently concerned an experiment in which I was loosely involved. Four three-year-olds sit in a room to view events in an adjoining playroom via a TV screen.An actor enters the playroom and the kids see him cuddling a life-size rubber doll. Then the children are led individually into the same room. Without prompting, all stroke or kiss the doll, mimicking what they saw. Later, the children are back in the viewing room. This time the TV shows a man coming into the playroom with a large wooden hammer. The toddlers see him beating the doll vigorously. When these normally well-behaved children are led back into the playroom, each attacks the doll viciously. One toddler's violence continues even when his mother comes in and tells him to stop. It is some time before he can be calmed down.

It is worth remembering that, in contemporary Britain, the average three or four-year-old now watches a screen for around five hours each day and more than 50 per cent of them have a TV set in their bedroom. Over the past 20 years, I have presented many science programmes on BBC1. But none is, I think, more socially important, or of more human interest, than the Child Of Our Time series. The BBC had planned to film the pregnancies of several women whose babies were due on January 1, 2000. But executive producer Tessa Livingstone persuaded the BBC that if about 25 children were followed over the years, it could provide an insight into the relative importance of nature or nurture in shaping children. WHERE possible, scientific tests and experiments would be used and the help of child development experts, psychologists and teachers would be enlisted.

When I was asked to present the series, I was dubious. It seemed unlikely that we would be able to make informed guesses about the future personality of any child we filmed. I was also sceptical that we would be able to tease out the relative influences of genetics and environment. And I doubted that viewers would gain much insight into their own childhood experiences. I was wrong. It has been a privilege to become close to these families and to realise that, through the series, it is possible to say important things about British life and how our society influences how children grow.

The parents and children come from all over Britain and from all walks of life and backgrounds. Some have had health problems, some social difficulties while others seem blessed with seemingly ideal environments. In the first programme this week, we screened the continuing story of five children - the boisterous James, who lives in deprived inner-city London with his single mother Carol; the delicate Helena, who lives with her married parents and attends a private school; clever scamp Ruben, from Sussex, who is one of three siblings - each with a different father; the shy William from Yorkshire, son of a vet, Neil and wife Gillian; and introverted Calvin, whose mother Helen separated from his father. Calvin now benefits from the presence of new "dad", Andrew.

What is engaging is that the story of each child and family is so moving. It might be easy to make snap judgments, to imagine that the quality of parenting or upbringing might be less good because of a difficult social background, or because a child has a physical handicap. Nothing seems further from the truth. The children have become dear to us because they show us how to cope with many of the difficulties of modern life. And providing that these children and their families continue to allow us to record their growth to adulthood, we shall be privileged to learn a great deal about the remarkable nature of a child's spirit and much about human values - about what makes us who we are. But given that I have suggested that television and television violence may have such a negative influence on young children, it may seem ironic that I am passionate about a series looking at child development.

Is there really hard scientific evidence that watching TV affects how youngsters communicate?

YES and the evidence grows steadily. Studies of boys, initiated in the 60s, showed that children aged six to 10 exposed to violent behaviour on TV were far more likely to demonstrate aggressive behaviour than adults in follow-up studies 15 or more years later. In separate projects, Dr Huesmann, in Michigan, and Dr Jeffrey Johnson, in New York State, have shown that such aggressive traits are increased even when other factors are taken into account. By the time they are 18, American children will have seen around 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence on TV.

Research is also beginning to show that violence on TV may not always cause children to be aggressive - the evidence suggests that this is true around 10 per cent of the time. The kind of violence viewed may also be important. Children seeing "unbelievable" violence may gain over-optimistic impressions about the body's ability to withstand attack.

As parents, can we counter the effect of TV violence? One worrying feature in Britain is that so many sets are in a child's bedroom this means that the mediating effect of watching with a parent, the ability to discuss and interpret, is lost. So perhaps we should reconsider placing this one-eyed monster in the bedroom, so often used by parents as a distracting, calming influence. But a sense of proportion is needed. We must recognise that television can be a hugely positive influence in children's lives, one of the greatest educators in society and an increasing influence on all the children followed in Child Of Our Time.

Questions and Tasks:

1. Why contemporary kids are so addictive to TV?

2. Who is making programmes for children on TV? What do such people keep in mind?

3. What kind of films/programmes do kids prefer to watch nowadays?

4. Why do children try to copy violence not virtues?

5. How should their parents behave? What steps they should take?