Censor what children watch

A Clinical Psychologist at the Department of Psychology,  University of Ghana, Legon, Dr Joseph Osafo, has asked parents to censor what their children watch on television.

He explained that what children watched on television could affect them either positively or negatively.
Dr Osafo said with the “increase in telenovela and cartoon series on our television these days, a lot of children were bound to be influenced by programmes they watched”.
Speaking to the Junior Graphic on the influence of such programmes on children, Dr Osafo said children take everything they see seriously, whether it is the actions of a parent, a favourite actor or actress or even a favourite cartoon character.
“This is because children find it difficult to differentiate between what is real and what is make-believe,” he added.
He further explained that “children learn from both what they have experienced and what they have seen of their role models and that is why they copy what they see other people do, because at their age their brains are still developing to make any good judgement of the situation.”
what children grew up to become in future depended on what they had experienced while they were young, he added.
When some children were interviewed,  they gave varied responses for the reasons why they watched certain programmes on television, as well as what they would like to become in future.
Some wanted to be super heroes and models just like their favourite cartoon characters, as well as popular characters in the Bible.
For instance, eight-year-old Delali Mensah,  a pupil of the Rising Sun School at New Bortianor in Accra, said he would like to be like the biblical Noah in future so that he would be able to talk to God directly and also build a big ark.
Delali added that the only cartoon series he and his siblings were allowed to watch were religious cartoons based on the scriptures because their father is a pastor.
Kojo Yaw, a pupil of the Dodowa Newtown Basic ‘B’ School, said he wanted to fly to a destination of his choice and kill all the people he didn’t like there, the way Superman acts in films.
Five-year-old Nana Kwasi in Accra also said he wanted to be ‘evil’ like a character in his favourite cartoon series, Ben 10, because he always heard the character say “I am evil.”
A mother of two, Madam Grace Amoako from North Kaneshie, Accra, however, did not see anything wrong with her young children watching any type of cartoon, whether it was educational, violent or Mexican soaps.
“I think Mexican soaps have positively influenced the way my 10-year-old daughter talks and walks because she watches how the beautiful women in the soap opera behave,” she said.
On the other hand, Mr Cosmos Arthur, a teacher of the Step-By-Step Montessori at Dansoman in Accra, said  when he observed children closely during breaktime, he noticed that some of them bullied their mates without any reason while others jumped and kicked their friends as if they were fighting Karate, which he believed were habits they had picked up from cartoon series and other violent scenes on TV.