Cartoon: One Hand Spanking

Right TV, or Parental Responsibility??

One of the folks I follow on Twitter (and a good friend) had tweeted something interesting yesterday, she does that frequently, and what she said got me to thinking here.

Her first tweet said…

“Who says TV programs of hip serial killers has no affect on our society? It’s Cool to Kill Syndrome”

Which was followed up by…

“I wonder if Buddha was around these days whether he would have added Right TV to Right Speech.”

I think she has stumbled onto something, and from research done in the past, we know TV is very influential. The AACAP did a study in 2002 that states…

Extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness.  Sometimes, watching a single violent program can increase aggressiveness.  Children who view shows in which violence is very realistic, frequently repeated or unpunished, are more likely to imitate what they see.  Children with emotional, behavioral, learning or impulse control problems may be more easily influenced by TV violence. The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in the child’s behavior or may surface years later. Young people can even be affected when the family atmosphere shows no tendency toward violence.

Lettuce Be Grateful

From Conscious Choice
By Natalie Fee

Something very beautiful happened to me the other day. Something beautiful is happening all the time actually, but for the most part my mind is too busy thinking to notice. But on this particular afternoon, I did notice. While walking my son Elliot home from school, I was presented with a perfect opportunity to employ a technique I’d learned earlier that week from a CD by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. It was a simple way of practicing awareness — when a disturbing emotion arises, you stop, don’t act, and breathe. The idea is that the simple process of becoming aware of the emotion — be it anger, fear, sadness — is enough to begin a transformation, turning the emotion from “negative” into something more beneficial and useful.

Placing the pressure on parents to ensure their children’s success

Ed note. – Here in the US we are so quick to blame the parents when something goes wrong with our kids, or they do something horrendous and unfathomable. Seems to me, in the article below, that parents in Thailand are setting fire to a new trail. It’s called taking an interest in our childrens education. Maybe we should all try it?

by SIRIKUL BUNNAG, Bangkok Post

Nannapas Khamchan, 14, reads a child-raising manual with her mother Ueamporn Piew-ngam, 39, who was attending a twice-yearly class to brush up on parenting skills at Mathayom Thanbin Kamphaeng Saen school.