Jan 6, 2012 -- 11:15AM, TemplarS wrote:

Sure, parents can do what they can, but based on personal experience it is largely futile, once your child gets to be about 7 years old. 

They're out of the house most of the  day, they get their hands on whatever any of their friends get their hands on, and are conditioned to respond to what other kids are doing (and the peer pressure surely does not come from the ones dressed modestly sitting quietly in the corner studying). You can't parent everyone's kids.   TVs have V-chips and there are parental controls on computers but beyond a certain point (which for me happened when my kids were about 10, though I am neither stupid nor technologically ignorant) my children were more adept at figuring this sort of stuff out than I was.

There are objectionable ads on the Super Bowl (not to mention wardrobe malfunctions- though honestly plain out nudity is not the biggest problem) and the sides of buses; and you only have to turn the dial to find functionally obscene music on the radio.

You cannot shield your children from this stuff.  It is not possible, unless maybe you move to  Iran.

But most kids will come out okay; I finally figured this out, and also figured out that the best thing was simply to deal with it, and make sure my children understood that there is more to life and personal worth (especially as I have daughters) than looking and acting hot and sexy. 

I think you can over-do it on both ends of the spectrum.  There are alot of shows that my kids can watch, starting at around age 14 my son consumed a regular diet of South Park, which he watched with his father.  My daughter loves Glee, starting at age 10 which most parents are against but I watched it with her.  We talk to our kids about things, sexual and violent or even just mindless.  I believe they are OK.  My son is prehaps a bit obsessed with girls and sex but most 16 year old boys are.  He seems to treat girls reasonably well and although he would love a girlfriend that would sleep with him (none have yet thank goodness) he is genuinely interested in the girls as people.   My daughter is sort of turned off by the sexy girl demands.  Yes she wants to be pretty but she also wants to be an athlete, a scholar and a musician.  She is not the type to strut around in sexy attaire. 

But that does not mean parents should be unaware.  You can't sterelize society but that does not mean you can't monitor what the kids consume.  I think there should be rating tools available to make that easier on parents. 

At age 8 my son was out at a friends house playing Grand Theft Auto.  That is right people gave their young boys video games that feature stealing cars, having high speed car chases from the cops, abducting "whores" and slapping them around.  These parents were very nice people, very involved and interested in doing the right thing.  It just never occured to them that video games came with ratings and perhaps a young boy should not have a video game rated M for mature. My son was friends with several boys who had similar stories.  For his 9th birthday party one little boy gave him a M rated video game as a present.  It was a war video game with US soilders killing other people and shouting out explatives as they did it.  Again, very nice parents it just never occured to them to pay attention that some video games are highly inappropriate.

So I am a fan of rating systems and educating people that they exist and to use them to make smarter choices. 

In my house since I can't just throw away all the video games along with the machines to play them as I would like to do.  I had a rule that my son could play the video games that were G rated untill he was about 10 and then I would consider some of the video games that were for rated T for 13 and older and now at 16 he is free to play some of the M games. 

Not that we let him play video games very much during the school year.

They do it with music already and with video games.  I was against this at first but it is usefull. 

I think probably what is best for parents of children is to not let them watch MTV but there are stations that show more wholesome pop music videos that should be safe.