The Kids Are All Nuts

According to Professor Aric Sigman, a psychologist and biologist, children under 3 shouldn’t be allowed to watch television. Aged 3-7 they might be permitted half an hour a day. Aged 7-13 they can watch 2 hours. Any more than this and your child is liable to suffer all manner of problems, from ADHD to morbid obesity. "Screen media must now be considered a major public health issue” wobbles Aric. Strangely enough, he used to appear as the resident doctor on Going Live! which was over two hours long and therefore unacceptable for children’s viewing by his standards. I remember switching over immediately when he came on with his transatlantic drawl, trying to tell me about acne treatments when I wanted to see Trev hit Simon with a pie.

Who’d want to be a kid in 2007? Junk food will kill you, toy adverts are immoral, myspace will see you killed by paedophiles, television makes you fat. The poor little sods are cosseted from all sides by over-protective hand wringers desperate to preserve an idea of childhood that hasn’t existed outside of The Famous Five. We are in danger of producing a generation of defenceless weirdos who have no idea how to survive in the modern world. If parents absorbed all the media messages about how to bring up their children their heads would explode. Your child may not sit in front of the television but they may not be allowed outside in case a stranger kidnaps them for a starring role in his child porn videos. They may not eat junk food or too much salt, or sweets, or fizzy drinks, or more than one serving of oily fish, or red meat. In fact, why don’t we just suspend our newborns in saline filled pods until they reach 18, that way no harm can possible come to them and we won’t feel like Fred and Rosemary West because Cosmo ate a cheeseburger and then watched Dr Who.

Unfortunately this kind of relentless over-parenting has infiltrated television anyway. Any child allowed to watch TV after 7pm will see wave after wave of ‘bad’ children being fixed by Supernannys or Child Psychologists until they sit properly, eat their carrot sticks and go to bed at 8pm on the dot dreaming of another sticker on their behaviour chart. The BBC even has a parenting website where you can check up on where you’re going wrong. There’s a very helpful section on how to explain wars and conflicts to your kids. During the first Gulf War I remember writing a diary entry on the day the conflict began. I wrote with great detail and excitement about the new Sylvanian Families rabbit I had been given, and added at the end ‘PS War broke out’. I really didn’t give a shit about war and international politics, I assumed that if it got really bad, ie there were Iraqi soldiers marching down High Street, that school would be cancelled and my dad would probably sort them out. Now, parents are being told to sit their children down quietly and explain that ‘something bad is going on very far away but you’re safe here’. Of course we all know that this will actually scare kids shitless because they understand inherently that parents lie about everything. They will interpret this ‘chat’ as “We’re probably going to die soon, but please don’t make a fuss’.

Star charts are another method of breeding greedy brats who can’t cope without attention. The thinking behind them is that they encourage good behaviour by rewarding it. Eaten your dinner? Star! Gone to bed? Star! Stopped beating your brother with a wooden spoon for no reason other than it’s mildly diverting? Star! So what happens when junior gets to school and expects praise and rewards for behaviour he should be displaying anyway?
Will they have a star chart in his University classroom? Or in the boardroom? No. By this time he’ll have to get used to the fact that the vast majority of people behave well all of the time, and get bugger all benefit from it. Either that or he can siphon off interest from company pension funds into an offshore account for forty years and then spend five minutes on the naughty step.

The Sunday Supplement method of child rearing is even more vomit inducing. It generally involves skipping ropes and Mummy and Me Painting Classes and is the preserve of middle class upward movers who think that the childhood they never had is what should be afforded to their children whatever the cost. This imagined idea of what children enjoy doing is even more barmy than the Supernanny tribe’s. They spend hundreds of pounds on toys the same as the rest of us, only Harry and Olivia-Jane get hand made Cornish hoops and sticks or genuine Gloucester-built rocking horses that Dad saw on Countryfile. The children’s misery at being the only people in school who don’t know how to pronounce Wii is compounded by the weekends being rigorously timetabled with ballet, pony trekking, pottery and cello practice. Then, when Olivia-Jane gets happy slapped because she can’t weave herself a wicker shield quick enough, they take their kids out for ‘home schooling’, effectively ending their normal lives and consigning them to a future filled with Bee Identification courses at the local Ranger’s station because pubs are for morons.

“Screen media” is one of the few pleasures that kids are still allowed to enjoy. Where else is a child able to see a lion eat a gazelle? Toxteth? Is mum meant to fork out £25 on a ticket to see Manchester United play in the FA cup because 90 minutes is too long for a child to sit and watch it for free at home? I would like to challenge Professor Sigman to try and prevent my two year old sisters from watching Numberjacks. He won’t last five minutes.