Do you know what your teens are watching?

(Teen romance issues and suicide)

Nothing influences us more than media. What’s on TV, in the movies, on the magazines, on the radio, on the net. Nothing sells like the media.

It’s important to know what our kids and teenagers watch and follow. Here are two I find quite not so safe.

First time – This is a local (Philippines) afternoon soap about four very young teens getting too absorbed in young romance that it seems it’s the only thing in the world that really matters. The last episodes (glad it has ended) saw two of the main characters attempting to elope. And when their parents tried to separate them, the two acted like they’re being forced apart to be taken to the slaughter house. Lots of screaming and drama, what, are the characters ready to get married and raise babies at 14?

The writers of the teen show can’t seem to come up with a better plot and resorted to cheap shallow conflicts, not realizing the influence they could have on the young minds of our youth, the implication of elopement, of disobeying parents, of running away. The show also seems to undermine the value of education.

Is this what we’re feeding our youth, that life is miserable if at a young age, you don’t have a boyfriend/girlfriend yet while everyone else does? Should romance be then teenagers’ priority? What about school, family, parents, self improvement?

You Tube MTV – The internet have also become a major influence in our lives. I was looking for a song the other day and stumbled onto this very disturbing MTV. This anime video comprises numerous gory scenes of torture, death, murder even that of a young girl who hung herself dropping her teddy on the floor. See it for yourself and I hope it raises concern.

What kind of message does a video like this inculcate in the minds of its young viewers you think? Most videos like these have been made by teenagers themselves. Maybe a cry for attention, love, help?

Do you know what your children are watching, learning, discovering? Knowing might just save them from an impending harm. Getting involved more deeply into what they’re into would help find the wisdom to guide them and keep them from making the mistakes and wrong values the characters in the aforementioned local show I wrote about, and even save them from the horrific end some of the scenes in the video I embedded above is depicting.

Recommended site:

To write love on her arms