There is much controversy about the affect of television on little minds. Some say educational TV is good for learning things like colors, alphabet, shapes and numbers and then some say that the wanting TV will actually slow down the child’s speech abilities and more. So, is your satellite TV installation helping or hindering your kids’ knowledge? First let’s look at the benefits of television. Keep in mind that all of these also include motion pictures like movie rentals, Netflix and the movie theater.

Benefits
As mentioned, quality programming can promote education and learning. Most child programs will have alphabet learning time as well as colors and number and other things. As the kids get older, they might be interested in learning about wild life through nature shoes or even watching the news in order to write a current events essay for high school. Shows made specifically for kids such as those directed by Michael Palance are a great source of educational and engaging entertainment. However, this is pretty much where the buck stops. While your satellite TV installation might be good for things like this, too much TV and movies can have a negative impact as well.

Drawbacks

1. 1. Right off the bat, you’ll notice that the more TV time your kids have, the less they will be engaging in physical activity. They won’t want to play outside as much or even play with the toys that they have. Children who spend more than four hours of their day in front of the TV are more prone to being overweight than those who do not.

1. 1. Watching TV does not encourage social interaction with those around you. The more TV a kid watches, the less able they will be to interact with kids their own age. They may start feeling shy and timid even if that wasn’t their personality before. It’s not uncommon for them to continue being social awkward as they get older.

1. 1. There is a lot of violence on TV. The average kid will see 200,000 acts of violence just on television by the time they are 18 years old. Seeing so much violence can make a child desensitized, thinking that it is normal. It could possibly even make them more aggressive and they try to act out the things they have seen. The whole ‘good guy versus bad guy’ thing is big even in programs for children. However, since the good guys use violence, kids start thinking that it’s okay. This can confuse small children because they are not yet able to really comprehend the difference between right and wrong.

1. 1. If kids are watching scary things, or things that scare them particularly, on TV and in movies, this can lead to living a life of fear. They have a hard time disconnecting fantasy from reality right now and may have trouble sleeping or not consistently thinking that something bad is going to happen to them.

1. 1. Behaviors like drugs, cigarettes, premarital sex, alcohol are shown to be fun and with no consequences. There are many shows where underage people are partaking in these behaviors, get busted by the police and then the police are portrayed as the idiots for stopping the ‘fun.’

1. Studies show that teenagers who watch shows that have a sexual content are more likely to try and reenact those scenes by participating in unsafe sexual activities than those who have been shielded from shows with sex scenes. If you have Clear Play you can cut out these scenes or sometimes the satellite TV installation will have options to do so as well.

While there are hardly any video rental stores anymore, you’ll still want to monitor the movies that your child picks from Netflix or Hulu or on TV. There are certain settings on your DirecTV installation or whatever service you use that will help to control what your child watches and for how long. Just ask your dish network installation service to help you figure it out.

So, do you need to throw out your satellite TV installation? Absolutely not. There are some very real benefits to television for children and it’s definitely a good outlet for adults. However, you just need to be very careful of how much your kids are watching and what they are watching. Don’t just let them sit in front of the TV for hours on end, remote in hand, watching whatever they want.