"Parents, not TV, cause of violence”

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33425, 5 January 1974, Page 5

"Parents, not TV, cause of violence”

(By

C. G. McDANIEL,

of Associated Press,

through N.Z.P.A.)

CHICAGO. It is not the violence on television that creates violent children but how their parents rear them, two American child development experts say. However, they are critical! of the passivity involved ini hour after hour of television; viewing by children. They particpated in a recent workshop at the annual meeting of the American Association of Psychiatric Services for Children. One of them. Dr Maria; Piers, a psychologist and: dean of the Erikson Institute; for. Early. Education, in Chicago, said it was not television that made young people violent, or kept them from relating to others. It was the absence of other ingredients that made for a: fulfilling life. The other, Mr Joseph! Palombo, a. social worker; and director of the child therapy programme at the, Chicago Institute for Psycho-j analysis, said children’s per-' 1 sonalities were already developed before they are able;.

to understand what was happening on the screen. Dr Piers said: “violent people come in all shapes and sizes, but it does not matter what level of society they come from and they have the same things in common: they lack the capacity , for empathy, the ability to put themselves in another ! person’s shoes. “They lack well developed: skills that satisfy in and of; themselves, that is, there are no activities, such as cooking or playing, which give them pleasure. They lack imagination.” I She said the dangers of i television were the frequency with which parents placed children before the set to sit passively for hours and the facile solutions television offered to many problems. Mr Palombo said child-i ren did not interact with television sets the way they' interacted with their parents, who were crucial in the development of children’s t ideals and values. “At best,” he said.” television for children is like watching puppets that are; ; not real.” I