Channeling Children

Not very sure if u people had noticed... But, effective y'day there is a new channel on the block - The History Channel... a part of the STAR suite. Its really heartening to see the "Satellite television" turning out to be an educational media too rather than just being entertainment oriented. There was a time (and it still holds) when the Satellite televisions were considered to spoil kids and bring all the wrong things from all around the world at their footstep... But things seem to change in the recent times. Channels have really widened their scope of coverage and are moving to being edutainment channels more than anything else... But what remains to be seen, is the attitude of the parents. Finding a parent who does not give "cable" connection when their children are in school esp. 10th and 12th, is not an uncommon sight. "Studies will get spoiled" is the cliched reply. Most parents are always under an apprehension that getting good marks in the school exams is an indication of intelligence. Moreover, which parent would like their children to score less than their neighbour's child. The bad mania of comparing with other children often leads to the parents pressuring their children into studies and this does no good to the children. Preventing children from watching TV under the pretext of exams or inheriting bad things from channels often shuts the child from a wide array of domains that he ought to learn and know at these younger ages. The attitude of their child's intelligence measured in terms of his marks in the exams or his performance relative to the neighbour's child does have a telling effect. Parents tend to worry on the not-so-right side of things by having too much concern about marks rather than concentrating on choosing the right mould for their child's betterment. ---------------------- If I knew what I was so anxious about, I wouldn't be so anxious. -- Mignon McLaughlin