What do kids do when we get home from school? What do we do when it's rainy and we can't go outside? For most of us, it isn't homework. We watch television. And a lot of it. We are greatly influenced by television. And that is why I think children's television should be of high quality.
What Children's Television Should Be
Last January, Midge Pierce, the vice-president of WAM!, a noncommercial cable network, nominated me to serve as a junior delegate at the Second World Summit on Television for Children. Five hundred adult delegates and 31 junior delegates attended the summit, held in London in March 1998. The junior delegates taught seminars to the adults about what they thought children's television should be, and we created a children's charter, or bill of rights, for children's television. We decided that to make a difference in children's television, the charter needed to include the following things about what children's programming should be.
- Respectful. TV hosts and anchors all over the world often treat kids as if we are stupid. Kids want hosts who really like kids and who respect our opinions and appreciate our intelligence. We don't like hosts and anchors who talk down to us.
- Honest and real. Kids trust TV to tell them the truth. We also want programs that tell us what we need to know. Children need to know what is happening in our communities, our countries, and the world. Kids like shows to be factual but not boring; children's television should be entertaining, educational, and stimulating.
- Nonviolent. The delegates pointed out that many programs promote violence for the sake of violence or use violence to solve conflicts. Although we felt that violence is not acceptable, we also recognized the difference between violence and action. Kids like programs that are exciting, but not ones with gratuitous violence. For example, the Power Rangers are not OK because whenever there is a conflict with someone else, they beat up that person instead of working out a nonviolent solution.
- Inclusive. None of us understood why on television the kids with glasses are always nerds, the fat kids are never popular, and, maybe most important, the disabled kids are never the stars. Two junior delegates with disabilities, Abigail and Tina, helped the rest of us understand what it is like to be a kid with a disability watching TV. Often they feel left out when kids talk about TV shows at school. Kids need to see ourselves on television—our backgrounds, races, skin colors, and religions. And we need our cultures portrayed correctly.
The delegates also thought that kids should be involved in the production of children's shows. Kids watch the shows, and we know what other kids like. As the adults at the summit said, it makes good business sense to listen to your audience. The delegates thought adults could put kids on an advisory panel or a board or just ask kids our opinions in a poll.
The Wave of the Future
Television will always be a great influence in children's lives. Children get a lot of their ideas about the world from TV, so what we see on TV is important. Kids are the future world leaders. Think about how important it is to shape the ideas of the leaders of the future. Make a difference in children's television by reading and signing our charter, asking your friends who work in television to sign it, or presenting it to the TV stations in your city. The future leaders of the world need your help!
