Parents (even the only marginally involved ones) question what factors affect their children's development, and in which ways, so that they can decide whether they should allow the exposure of their kids to these factors. However, that intent seems to stop at questioning; once comments are made and the situation evaluated, any further involvement seems minimal in most cases. For example, many of my parents' friends who have children of their own discuss the modern day culture among themselves, and, being a kid at one point, I could not help but listen in. At the time, my opinions were that this was tyranny; how could my friends' parents decide what they should and should not watch on TV? But, even though the parents seem to lament on the amount of violence and sexual content in movies, the content of their DVD collections seems to indicate that they do not care about it as much as they say they do. So, the question is, whose job is it to regulate content? The government's, which was created with the goal of the protection of the freedom of speech, or the parents', whose judgment (hopefully) is much more developed on the issues of child development?
Parenting... for Someone Else
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In my opinion it ultimately comes down to the parents responsibility. The government should not be involved in what is or is not allowed to be viewed by children, that should be at the parents discretion. But on the other hand I do think that the government should implement programs or ways that make it easier for parents to block or prevent their children from watching or being exposed to certain things. The government should make it easier on the parents to do their job and protect their children from what they feel is inappropriate. But I feel very strongly that is the responsibility of the parent to regulate content.