The Influence of "Magic Box" to Children

If in Doraemon’s world we meet magic pocket,, then in human world we meet “Magic Box” or Television. This kind of electronic is so popular and everyone have at least one TV in their house. TV can be entertaining and educational, and can open up new worlds for kids, giving them a chance to travel the globe, learn about different cultures, and gain exposure to ideas they may never encounter in their own. But TV
doesn’t always give the benefit to us. It also has the bad effect, especially for children. A regional study which is followed by children in Canada, Australia, America, and Indonesia about waching TV, got an interesting result. Indonesian Children spend more time in watching TV than children in America, Australia, than Canada. From the data in 2002, the sum of children’s watching TV in Indonesia is approximately 30-35 hours/week or 1560-1820 hours/year. This number is much more higher than time to study in elementary school which doesn’t reach 1000 hours/year.

Watching television has several bad effects to children. The bad effects are :

Influence the brain growth of the children (0-3 years) by disturbing in building the speak, verbal-read, and the understanding

Motivate children to be consumptive
Advertisers target kids, and on average, children see tens of thousands of TV commercials each year. This includes many ads for unhealthy snack foods and drinks. then the children could be consumptive.

Influence children attitude
Children who spend much time watching TV but they haven’t had a high critical think, will be influenced by what TV shows. They could think that everybody in around them has the same characteristic as people in television. This can influence children attitude and can be affected until they become adults.

Reduce their spirit to study
The programs which are shown in television has simple and attracting language. It can make children addicted, so it is so possible that children become lazy to study
Form a simple way in the way of thinking  Too often watch tv and never want to read can cause the children have a simple and uncritical in the way of they thinking. And it can influence children’s imagination, intelligence, creativity, and the cognitive growth.

Increase the risk of becoming obesity
University of Michigan researchers found that just being awake and in the room with the TV on more than two hours a day was a risk factor for being overweight at ages three and four-and-a-half. Children who watch TV are more likely to be inactive and tend to snack while watching TV. TV time also takes away from participating in sports so children have less body movement, decrease the body metabolic activity,fat becomes over in the body that isn’t burned then the body becomes obesity

Get lots of information about sexuality from television
There are a lot of sexual content which are shown when children watch TV. But, they aren’t accompanied by their parents. Unfortunately, children always want to know more, and they can possibly follow or try what they see. In result, as we see nowadays that many teens start having sex at younger ages.

By looking at the fact, we should think first if your children want to watch TV. And it will be better if we try to reduce the frequency of watching TV. Then, how??

Go to town library or nearest book store
Try to make children to like reading by going to the library or buying some books for them in a bookstore. Sometimes,parents may read a story for them and don’t forget to ask children to tell again what the story told.
Gardening
Television sometimes make us far away from nature. So, children can learn something from nature.. and gardening would be a good choice. We can start from simple thing by planting flower by themselves, and teaching how to keep it. Parents can teach many things and teach the children to be responsible
Playing
kids love playing,,and there are varies kinds of toys now

Walking around
Jit is simple and easy..walking around neighborhood so that the children are not getting bored.

Swimming , Biking, and Doing Sport
these three activities can make the children’s body become it and healthy. If children don’t like to bike or do some sport, swimming is the best choice because kids love playing in water

Go to the Zoo or Museum

There are few activities that help the children reduce their time in front of TV. Actually, there are still many things that parents and children can do to reduce “time for TV”,, but the point is always give all the best for children for brighter futue..^^

References :
“Pengaruh Nonton TV pada Anak-Anak” in dranak.blogspot.com
“Waspada Pengaruth TV pada Anak” www.halamansatu.net
www.med.umich.edu