What our kids see

We’re trying out Netflix for free, and are enjoying some TV shows that are otherwise not available:  “Orange is the new Black” and “Vikings”, among a few.

Image borrowed from noobie.com's
  "What is my child watching on Netflix?"
by Patric Welch.

Anyone who’s watched these shows know there’s a lot of graphic sex scenes as well as blood and gore that comes with medieval fighting. 

My daughter sometimes watches with us, and who can blame her? The plots draw us in and we can really watch episode after episode after episode. Plus, it’s nice to watch together with a bowl of popcorn and a bottle of Coke between us.


But being the parents that we are, we didn’t think we should expose our 13-year-old girl to all these scenes so we figured that when together, we would watch a show of her choice and reserve the more adult TV shows when she was studying or otherwise occupied. She protested, but chose one that looked harmless and the first few scenes were even more graphic than any we’d previously watched. We didn’t finish the episode.

Just a few days ago, we had a few families over that included girls in their late teens and early twenties. They got excited over Netflix and watched a TV show I had never heard of, and which we all watched to the very end, where the main character exchanged a mouthful of obscenities with another character in what was supposed to be an expression of freedom.

As the credits rolled in, I turned to the other mothers in the room and said, “Ang hirap magpalaki ng anak ngayon, no? (It’s hard raising kids in this day and age, right?)” This led to an exchange among us about how our kids get exposed, voluntarily or involuntarily, to sex, violence, swearing and all the other things that would not have been easily accessible in our childhood.

Let’s face it. The strictest parental controls may delay, but will not stop, access to adult material. It’s not just Netflix, but all the other content available online, whether generated by film and/or TV outfits, or by your friendly, neighborhood FB. You cannot watch your daughter or son 24 hours a day.

Sooner, rather than later, kids will hear the F word if not from TV then maybe from a neighbor or even a classmate, or watch teens making out via “Teen Wolf” or watch entertainment shows that spews headlines about who cheated on who or who was caught doing what with who.

Nowadays, it is impossible to monitor, more so control, what your kids are exposed to. You can certainly try, like we try, but know that it is impossible. You may press the pause button or tell your kids to close their eyes when a scene threatens to get hot and heavy; you may even have access to your kid’s news feed in FB so that you can see what she and her friends are posting and explain what needs to be explained before things get out of hand.

These days, parents have to work double-time on rationalizing all that their kids are seeing, in the hope that they will be able to make their kids see and understand what is right from wrong, what should be against what should not be, and grow up to be proper, responsible, respectful and loving adults.

What we want to achieve with our children is really nothing new. It’s no different from what our parents tried to achieve with us. The only difference in this day and age is that with all that’s out there, the effort to instill the right values in our children and help mold their characters has become a battle that that has to be fought on so many fronts.