CHAPTER 21
Children’s Media
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What Do Parents Want for Their Kids?
All parents want the best for their kids. Theoretically, the best entertainment inspires, edu-
cates, entertains, and helps our kids to grow all at once. It helps children to understand them-
selves and others and learn about the world around them. Children’s programming must
give our children the best in role models while never assuming that all children are the same
and need the same role models. It needs to provide something for all ages but not encour-
age kids to grow up too fast. It must never be boring but stimulating, action packed, fasci-
nating, and reassuring. It should provide kids with an emotional experience but never be
too frightening or too violent. That’s a very tall order!
The problem is that government regulators and broadcasters sometimes try to do too
much. Yes, we should develop and write the very best programming that we can—always—
but all programming can’t be all things to every child. The tendency is to have a clinical out-
break of a single type of programming, with each program trying to accomplish the same
thing while getting top ratings to boot. Then when ratings fall, networks move on to the next
flavor of the month. The key is in providing a varietyof programming. Children are differ-
ent, and different children need different experiences in their entertainment. All children
benefit from exposure to a wide variety of experiences.
What Do Kids Want?
Kids want and deserve to be entertained. That’s simple! Life today is very stressful, even for
kids. In some countries and in many urban neighborhoods mere survival is an issue. Edu-
cational programming is a good idea, but sometimes it’s not entertaining. Like adults, chil-
dren need some time to kick back. That does not mean that all children’s media should do
nothing but entertain. When parents and children alike are given more of a choice, children’s
needs are served.
None of us likes the same thing over and over again. But kids demand “cutting edge”
only if the media creates that demand. What is new and different to a child may merely be