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The Westminster
News
School sees harm in TV - June 2007
Anne McIntosh MP was told by Millbank Primary School’s 12 strong student
parliament that children are watching too much TV and addictive computer games,
and it’s having a negative impact on their family life and friends.
Jessica Collins, aged 11, told the MP that she felt computer games were too
addictive and unhealthy: “I play Sims on my laptop a lot and I keep saying that
I’ll stop when I get to a certain stage but then I can’t and I keep going.
Sometimes I feel moody after playing.”
The children said that if encouraged they would ditch the screen and play more
sport to keep fit, which would help tackle rising levels of obesity.
The children’s parliament concluded that they wanted to reduce the amount of
time they spent on computer games to enjoy more quality time with their family.
Parents spoke of the challenges of tearing their kids away from their mobile
phones and TV.
Abduction fear
Parents also shared their reluctance to allow their children to play freely on
the streets and their fear of “stranger danger” following the abduction of
Madeleine McCann in Portugal.
This also followed the recent independent investigation - the Good Childhood
Inquiry - which revealed that 43% of parents surveyed said 14 was the earliest
they would allow their child to play outside alone.
Proper media reporting would have warned these parents that the most dangerous
place for child abductions is the home. Social Services abduct 4,500 children
from their homes annually to meet government forced adoption targets. These
children are dealt with in secret family courts where parent have no rights; if
they object too strongly parents are imprisoned.
In most cases the parents never see their children again. (See
www.fassit.co.uk
for examples.)
Dumbed down Head Teacher, Alyson Russen said: “Some of the pupils in our
hard-to-reach families have excessive and unbalanced media habits.
It isn’t acceptable and politicians – as well as the rest of us – need to look
at the issue seriously and come up with some practical solutions.”
The Shadow Minister visited the school’s parliament to help launch a new book by
Teresa Orange and Louise O’ Flynn - ‘How to Stop Your Kids Watching Too Much TV,
Spending Hours on the Computers, Wasting days on the Game Boy and Endlessly
Texting Friends….’
The national picture is equally worrying; British media has a deliberately
destructive effect on our morals, and with subtle or subliminal techniques it
undermines our mental health and self confidence.
Television confines people to inactive lives, reduces the ability to socialise,
and dumbs our population down. It breeds an inability to debate or protest, and
conceals the main issues in our lives with non news.
The BBC has 400 of the EU’s Common Purpose members on staff, censoring out the
main issues affecting our lives, deliberately keeping us in ignorance.
The worst example is that, in two years time, we face the abolition of Britain
after 1,000 years; most people have no idea, many cannot understand the issue,
and are too dumbed down to realise the seriousness of the threat. The damage
done by TV affects all of us, not just children.
Cllr Sarah Richardson, Cabinet Member for Children Services said: “It’s
fantastic to see such bright young children wanting to swap watching the TV to
playing more sport and spending more time with their family. The council
encourages children and adults to make the most of the city’s great sporting
facilities and beautiful parks.”
Link:
http://thewestminsternews.co.uk/twn7.pdf
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