TV OR NOT TV

By Steve Wulf

Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through a land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast-- And half believe it true. --Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The children pad down the stairs on Saturday morning, and after a quick breakfast they're beckoned to an adjacent room by a blank TV screen. Taken in hand by the remote control, they are led through a world populated by Power Rangers, Animaniacs, the Cryptkeeper, Cap'n Crunch, Hulk Hogan, the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Ducks, Rugrats, Spider-Man, Superman, Pinky and the Brain, Barbie, Nightmare Ned, The Undertaker ...

Not even sensible and indomitable Alice could have stood up to all the characters that inhabit Saturday-morning television, which accounts for just a few of the 28 hours the average American child spends in front of the tube every week. Wonderland? Children's programming is more like the quintessential "wasteland" denounced by former fcc chairman Newton Minow, a land in which young viewers are pursued--and often captured--by cartoons and cartoonish people sponsored by companies trying to entice the kids into buying their candies and sweetened cereals and toys.

We worry about them when they wander into the world of adult television, with its sex and violence and sass. But in reality, prime time provides only about five violent acts an hour, while the Saturday-morning baby sitter offers children about 26 such acts an hour. Studies have shown that the more violence children watch, the more likely they are to act aggressively. A child watches more than 100,000 acts of violence on television before he or she is finished with elementary school, according to the American Psychological Association.

We're not the first generation of parents to be confronted by the potential dangers of television. But our parents didn't have to safeguard dozens of channels or computer video games or cute little frogs hawking Budweiser on a Website. Nowadays 66% of families watch television at mealtimes, 54% of children have a set in their bedroom and the average family has the TV on seven hours a day, or nearly half of a household's waking hours. Allison Smith, a substitute teacher in Houston with two daughters, 5 and 6, says, "I grew up in the Brady Bunch era, and my parents didn't worry about how much TV I watched, and I watched a lot. TV was just not an issue. Today there is so much sex and violence, you have to monitor what your kids watch. Kids are doing things today that were unheard of 20 years ago, and maybe TV is partly to blame."

Not all television is bad, of course. It can teach and inspire and get children off the couch. But more likely it will numb and mesmerize and keep them in a state of suspended animation. If you look closely in a child's eyes after a program, you may be able to detect the difference. There just might be a gleam after, say, Bill Nye the Science Guy, or a glaze after, say, Power Rangers Turbo. Children need help as they make their way through a looking glass that gets wider every day. Their parents need their own guides.

To that end, the Children's Television Act was passed in 1990 and reinforced last year, so that this fall, for the first time, stations must provide three hours of educational programming in order to receive expedited renewal of their FCC licenses. In addition, we have new television ratings that tell us whether a show is geared toward education (Beakman's World, E/I), say, or fantasy violence (Power Rangers Turbo, FV). The true value of the V chip, which would block out potentially offensive shows, is still a matter for debate, but it is a sign that parents are desperate for help.

Peggy Charren, the leading crusader for the Children's Television Act and a visiting scholar at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, says, "There is no one set of guidelines applicable to every family. It's hard to tell working parents with latchkey kids, for instance, to keep them away from the television. But parents should at least get involved in what the children watch. Some of it is wonderful, some of it mindless, some of it horrifying, and they need our guidance."

As Kathryn Montgomery, president of the Center for Media Education, which helped develop the new ratings, says, "It's unfair and a little too easy to lay all the responsibility on parents. We all want what's best for our children. But what are we to do when every kid in the class is into the Power Rangers, which, by the way, has been a horrible influence on our children? What are we to do with the baffling array of choices?"

Equally troubling is the growing suspicion that the brain's executive centers may be compromised by too many hours in front of the tube.

--Jane M. Healy, Endangered Minds

Linda and Ron Raspet of Kensington, Md., have a 10- year-old daughter who lives up to her name of Sunny. Self-assured, well-spoken and home schooled, she has not watched TV on any regular basis since Sesame Street at the age of two. The Raspets read Endangered Minds and came to the same conclusion as the author. "After we read the book, we realized that even Sesame Street wasn't good for a child," says Linda Raspet. "It is rather schizophrenic, and we didn't want our daughter's mind to be programmed like that. That is when we decided to get rid of the TV altogether."

The Raspets are convinced that their daughter has missed nothing. "Sunny has lots of other interests--horseback riding, volunteer work, the piano. She recently built a phone for her uncle. There are so many more rewarding things to do than watch TV."

True, but there are rewarding things on TV, piles of wheat in mountains of chaff. Even the Raspets broke down and bought a TV last year to follow the elections; they keep it warm an hour a week by watching Star Trek videos. Public Broadcasting has taken a beating in recent years from critics and Congress, but it remains the single most important and trustworthy friend for our children, be they watchers of Arthur, Sesame Street or that big doofus Barney. The basic mission at pbs is to get children to learn. The basic mission almost everywhere else is to get children to buy.

Still, parents may be pleasantly surprised at some of the new, albeit mandated offerings on the networks this fall. Science Court on abc and The New Ghostwriter Mysteries on cbs look particularly promising. nbc took a somewhat lower and less imaginative road by filling up two hours with Saved by the Bell: The New Class, Saved by the Bell: The New Class (adventure series), Hang Time and Hang Time (adventure series).

"Some people find all the new choices on TV daunting," says Charren. "But I like to think of it as a library that just expanded. Sure there are some bad titles but, thanks to the Children's Television Act, there are more good ones too." Charren points out, though, that "the best choice of all is sometimes the Off switch."

Two years ago, Reggi Marder, Terri Bersohn and some other mothers in Evanston, Ill., decided to organize a TV Tuneout Week for their school. "We weren't saying TV was bad," says Marder, a working mother of three, "but we realized that it's very easy to use television as a baby sitter, and we wanted people to think about these things." The first tuneout week unfortunately coincided with both a nasty cold snap and sweeps week but, lo and behold, the local community center offered free ice skating, the ymca set up an evening swim, a nearby museum offered free programs ... "By the end of the week," says Marder, "we had parents telling us they wanted to do this every year."

Well, television is not the evil destroyer of all that is right in this world. In fact, and we say this with all the disdain we can muster for the elitists who purport otherwise--TV is good. --from an ABC ad for the new season

Television is just great as far as the Delmars of Gaithersburg, Md., are concerned. Bonnie and Steve Delmar, who live only a few miles from the Raspets, let their 11-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy watch as much television as they want, sometimes as much as 18 hours a day. There are two TVs in the kitchen, one in the living room, one in the basement, one in the parents' bedroom, and one in each child's bedroom--seven in all.

"I love TV," says Bonnie Delmar. "I grew up watching anything I wanted to. It opened up the world for me. I learned so much about other cultures. It is a wonderful teacher. I feel there is something to learn in even the dumbest shows." (Goodness knows, there are certainly enough of those.) The only shows she doesn't want her children to watch are the horror shows. Otherwise, says Delmar, "I'm trusting my kids to make the right choice. I'm hoping this philosophy works." So far, it seems to. Ashley, who's partial to Doug on Nickelodeon, is president of her student government, and Steven, who likes ESPN and The Dick Van Dyke Show, does well in sports.

To some, the Delmars may seem too permissive but, like the Raspets, when it comes to television, they have concerns and they act on them--albeit differently. "Instead of parents saying, 'Turn off the TV,' I think they should watch it with their children. And at the end of the show, they should ask them, 'Do you think it was a good ending? Did it teach you a lesson?' At our place, we do that quite often."

Sharing the experience is essential. "We can shape our children's response to television," says Charren. "If it's a good show, we can let them know why it's good just by our expressions. If it's bad, we can let them know that too."

The Copes of Tustin, Calif., have two girls, 3 1/2 and 2, and a certain reliance on the TV. "We're addicted," says Greg, an aerospace technician. But Greg and Laurie have already begun scouting out the territory ahead for their girls. They read magazines like TV Guide and Parents to figure out the story lines and tones of certain shows. They favor the PBS staples such as The Puzzle Place, as well as Amazing Animals and Katie and Orbie on the Disney Channel. They have started a video library of animal movies (Free Willy, Babe) and the Disney classics. Still, they feel they could use a little more help. "We don't know what all the ratings mean. We had them down pat six months ago," says Greg, "but when I see them today, I kind of forget. We're too busy to look again at the explanation for the guidelines."

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out-- And now the tale is done, And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun. --Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

How do we steer them home from the land of television? The Center for Media Education has published a pamphlet called A Parent's Guide to Kids' TV, within which are some helpful tips: Limit TV viewing to two hours or less a day and encourage children to match their TV time with reading time. No television during meals, before school and until homework is done. Prescreen and preselect shows to make certain they're appropriate. Watch with your children and talk about the shows. Don't allow sets in kids' bedrooms. Keep a TV diary to know just how much and what everyone is watching.

Charren also suggests setting up a video club with neighbors and friends; the VCR does offer parents more control. And she sensibly warns against using TV time as reward or punishment. "Treat it as if it were candy," she says, "and it will become candy."

One more family: the Wulfs. Our boys, 11 and 8, watch about 10 hours a week, mostly sports, though occasionally we'll catch them munching on Nickelodeon. (We discourage them from Rugrats, which is admittedly funny but alarmingly disrespectful of adults.) Our three-year-old twin girls are generally too busy playing with each other to watch TV, but they can sometimes be corralled by Barney & Friends or Sesame Street.

We have our shared pleasures in TV--an old Home Run Derby on the Classic Sports Network with the boys, a visit to our old friends on Sesame Street with the girls. But those times in front of the tube still can't compare with a bedtime reading of Goodnight Moon or Stuart Little or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

--With reporting by Kevin Fedarko/Chicago, Deborah Fowler/Houston, Chandrani Ghosh/Washington and Jacqueline Savaiano/Los Angeles

With reporting by KEVIN FEDARKO/CHICAGO, DEBORAH FOWLER/HOUSTON, CHANDRANI GHOSH/WASHINGTON AND JACQUELINE SAVAIANO/LOS ANGELES