Today I want to share a letter with you that I recently received from someone who contacted me:
“My son is almost three years old. He says things like ‘I hate you’, ‘you are dead meat’, and ‘shut-up’. None of which my family says. However, he did hear these things on Milo and Otis and on Shark Tales. What can I do?”
Here is the problem, we are living in a world which is permeated by the media. What I am going to say is not going to be very popular. Basically, television, today’s music, and a lot of the books that children read are filled with things that you do not necessarily want to have in your home.
By walking to school or just going through one ordinary day in his life (through television, billboards, newspapers and simply being on the street), a child growing up today, will be exposed to more violence, more murder, and more sexual behavior than our great grandparents saw in their entire lives.
It is very hard today to raise a child in a moral, proper fashion. But it is your job as a parent.
This is what you have to do.
First of all, you have to be very clear about how you want your home to be run. What are your standards? What is in your home? What belongs in your house and what belongs in outside of your house?
If you can, you should monitor what they watch on television because people like Milo and Shark Tales are going to impact the way your child talks. You do not want that to happen. You want your child to be a good boy, a good girl, and a respectful child. You do not want Shark Tales taking him away from that.
The other thing is you have to try to monitor, as best as you can, are your child’s friends. That is very hard to do. I know from my children that they always behaved very proper and spoke properly until they went to school.
What they hear from other children they bring home to the house. That is going to happen and there is nothing you can do about that. You have to make clear what your values are at home.
This means you have to have your values clear to yourself first of all. You have to know, for example, that you value honesty, truth, good behavior, and respect. You must maintain your values in your home and make them clear.
Let your child know that even though he sees things on the outside a certain way, here at home you do not do it that way. Let him know that you live differently and better at home.
That is very important because in our society today there are a lot of things that you do not want in your home. There are a lot of things that you see on television, the movies, and popular People type magazines that do not want your children to be exposed to and imitate.
You have to take steps right now while your child is young to establish what you expect from your child and live your life that way. You are your child’s best role model.
