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We aren't disagreeing about the merit of that show. We are disagreeing about the merit of the parent making all the decisions about what the kid is allowed to w

by curi 19y ago

We aren't disagreeing about the merit of that show. We are disagreeing about the merit of the parent making all the decisions about what the kid is allowed to watch.

rms 19y ago
And really I think you're just having a semantical disagreement when your core beliefs are pretty similar.
- curi 19y ago
  Core beliefs about religion might be similar, but not about attitudes to parenting. I've only expressed a small part of my disagreement.
SwellJoe 19y ago
"We are disagreeing about the merit of the parent making all the decisions about what the kid is allowed to watch." We are? OK, I guess that's something to think about. I kinda think it's part of a parents job to decide what young children see and hear. Hard core pornography, extreme violence, cultist propaganda of most kinds, and various forms of hate speech, all fall into the category of "things young children shouldn't have to figure out yet", for me. They'll see/hear it all when they get a little older, and that's OK, but we're talking about the Veggie Tales age group: 3-5 years old, or so.
- curi 19y ago
  I kinda think it's part of a parents job to decide what young children see and hear. Yeah, that is the thing I've been disagreeing about. I don't think "stuff the parent thinks is good/bad" is a reasonable criterion for what a child gets to see or not. It should be the child's decision, with advice from his parent. The fundamental issue is that if you can't persuade someone of your ideas, that is a bad reason to force him. If your child wants to see a religious video despite your advice, then he should see it. If it's full of dumb ideas it won't be very persuasive anyway, right? Certainly not more persuasive than the wise parent..?
  - rms 19y ago
    How do you give a three or four year old decision making power with regards to the media they consume? Buy some DVDs and let them pick the ones with the best cover?
    - curi 19y ago
      Most of my practical advice is nothing too special. You could get video previews for some shows, or get descriptions or read reviews and explain what it's about to child and see if he likes the sound of it. You can offer to get more of the same kind as something he likes. Parents already do these things at least sometimes. What parents don't generally do is have an attitude of trying to get whatever their child likes. They do that "within reasonable limits". Reasonable being a matter of their own judgment. They have preconceived ideas about what shows are bad, and try to avoid their child finding out about them instead of refuting the bad ideas. They fear "bad influences", instead of thinking that the worse an idea is, the less persuasive it is. One consequence of this attitude is that sometimes children want something, and their parents refuse, supposedly for the child's own good, and the child gets upset. Plenty of parents would, if their kid saw an episode of Veggie Tales (or whatever) and liked and repeated some ideas from it, say "omg the evil christians are polluting his mind" and forbid him from seeing the second episode that he's looking forward to. That's the wrong approach. Keeping people ignorant of ideas you think are bad is not the path to the truth.
      - curi 19y ago
        FYI the 7 or 8 downmods i got in this thread came in the space of a few seconds. Likely downmodding without reading.
        SwellJoe 19y ago
        I think someone found the discussion unattractive, and I kind of have to agree. We should have left it at "agree to disagree".
  - SwellJoe 19y ago

by curi 19y ago

We aren't disagreeing about the merit of that show. We are disagreeing about the merit of the parent making all the decisions about what the kid is allowed to watch.

rms 19y ago

And really I think you're just having a semantical disagreement when your core beliefs are pretty similar.

curi 19y ago
Core beliefs about religion might be similar, but not about attitudes to parenting. I've only expressed a small part of my disagreement.

SwellJoe 19y ago

"We are disagreeing about the merit of the parent making all the decisions about what the kid is allowed to watch." We are? OK, I guess that's something to think about. I kinda think it's part of a parents job to decide what young children see and hear. Hard core pornography, extreme violence, cultist propaganda of most kinds, and various forms of hate speech, all fall into the category of "things young children shouldn't have to figure out yet", for me. They'll see/hear it all when they get a little older, and that's OK, but we're talking about the Veggie Tales age group: 3-5 years old, or so.

curi 19y ago
I kinda think it's part of a parents job to decide what young children see and hear. Yeah, that is the thing I've been disagreeing about. I don't think "stuff the parent thinks is good/bad" is a reasonable criterion for what a child gets to see or not. It should be the child's decision, with advice from his parent. The fundamental issue is that if you can't persuade someone of your ideas, that is a bad reason to force him. If your child wants to see a religious video despite your advice, then he should see it. If it's full of dumb ideas it won't be very persuasive anyway, right? Certainly not more persuasive than the wise parent..?
- rms 19y ago
  How do you give a three or four year old decision making power with regards to the media they consume? Buy some DVDs and let them pick the ones with the best cover?
  - curi 19y ago
    Most of my practical advice is nothing too special. You could get video previews for some shows, or get descriptions or read reviews and explain what it's about to child and see if he likes the sound of it. You can offer to get more of the same kind as something he likes. Parents already do these things at least sometimes. What parents don't generally do is have an attitude of trying to get whatever their child likes. They do that "within reasonable limits". Reasonable being a matter of their own judgment. They have preconceived ideas about what shows are bad, and try to avoid their child finding out about them instead of refuting the bad ideas. They fear "bad influences", instead of thinking that the worse an idea is, the less persuasive it is. One consequence of this attitude is that sometimes children want something, and their parents refuse, supposedly for the child's own good, and the child gets upset. Plenty of parents would, if their kid saw an episode of Veggie Tales (or whatever) and liked and repeated some ideas from it, say "omg the evil christians are polluting his mind" and forbid him from seeing the second episode that he's looking forward to. That's the wrong approach. Keeping people ignorant of ideas you think are bad is not the path to the truth.
    - curi 19y ago
      FYI the 7 or 8 downmods i got in this thread came in the space of a few seconds. Likely downmodding without reading.
      - SwellJoe 19y ago
        I think someone found the discussion unattractive, and I kind of have to agree. We should have left it at "agree to disagree".
- SwellJoe 19y ago