Parents of Preschoolers  Discussion Forum

Do you think that news channels are effective thinking of children? Do you encourage your child to express his views on issues like terrorism? Have you observed any behavioral changes in your child after Mumbai terror attack? Smita replied. I am a college going girl. I read this article and hound it very useful. I thought of posting comment over here as I want to share my views on Mumbai terror attack. My mom and dad both work in south Mumbai. On the day of terror attack we were not in Mumbai but went to our native place to visit my grand parents. What if we were here? I am feeling sad to think that Mumbai is not a safe place and for that matter any metropolitan in India has become unsafe. Our politicians are corrupt. What are they doing about terrorism? My parents are so busy that we rarely seat and talk about such matters like terrorism, violence, etc. every family should make their children understand what all these terms mean. Manju replied. TV news channels are surely affecting the thinking of children. Every alternate day new news channel is emerging. There are English news channels, Hindi news channels, as well as Marathi news channels. Some news channels like India TV is full of sensational news. I think some news channels biased. They even make the news of terror attack on Mumbai sensational. News channels should understand that the information they are giving can be helpful to terrorists. It can cause more harm than no gain. In such sensitive situation like terror attack, news should spread carefully. My 6 year old was very curious to watch video footages of Mumbai terror attack. Ravi replied. Today methods of news dissemination have completely changed. There are so many news channels that you get to know it immediately if something happens. Somewhere I read that in United States children spend about three hours watching television. I do not how much time an Indian child spends in front of the television. But according to me an average Indian child must be spending about four to five hours watching television. Though an average child like to watch entertainment based programs like cartoons and WWF, nowadays they tend to come across news broadcast as there are so many channels. I surely encourage my child to express his views on important political and social matter.