“There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent. Every home is a university and the parents are the teachers”

Mahatma Gandhiji

Being a good parent is tough job. Our society is known for mixture of many complications and raising children with good morals and values is the fundamental duty of any parents.

It is a process and infact it is a life long process. In this process, parents must be a good decision maker. I want to highlight the one area in which many parents are facing lot of troubles. And the question of many is ” Shall I allow my children to watch cinema/films or not?”

Many parents have many point of views in this area. But I gonna discuss what I found based on my researches. There are THREE kinds of parents.

1. Parents who never allow their children to watch TV

BAD MOVE. If you refuse to introduce TV to your children, they are less aware than the fellow community. And they start to find alternative way to watch TV which is not available in home. During this journey, there are more chances to get mis-leaded. So, it is wrong decision to completely keep your children out of TV.

Some parents claiming that they don’t want to allow to watch cinema. But they allow all other than cinema. Here also a danger comes. According to my research, the children who are raised without allowing watching cinema are struggling to live in this society and at one moment they also started to watch cinema.

Because of the restrictions to watch cinema, children are left with fewer options to choose. For example I know a person who was not allowed to watch cinema. Instead he spent his entire time by watching WWE boxing. His parents were highly irrational. They thought that their child should not watch cinema. But now, he is watching even more useless fighting for even more time. Here we have to understand an old saying, ” Too much of anything is good for nothing.” If you show only one thing to avoid just cinema from your children, really it is wrong decision.

Some parents are claiming that the cartoon characters are from hell. So children should not be allowed to watch cartoons. It is completely irrational thinking. So first parents have to give space for rational thinking. There are many cartoons which teach good lessons. Instead of complete refuse, you have to find good cartoons and allow them to watch for minimum time.

2. Parents who don’t care about their screen time

I am going to discuss some real examples I observed. I saw one boy (8th std) who came to his grand parent’s home to spend his holidays. He was left with TV, Laptop with internet and smart phone. He can watch whatever film he wish because remort is in his hand. And he had to attend online class daily which was conducted by his school. So their parents arranged laptop for him. But, what he did is really not good for him. He attended online class for one hour and spend his entire remaining day in mobile games in front of screens. Here, the parents did not keep an eye on their child. If their grand parents refuse to give him phone, he will start to shout until they give. This is even more bad decision. So, never allow longer screen time.

And some parents allow their children to watch violence scenes in films. This is not recommended. Children should not be exposed to violence scene. Parents have to be careful with this. And before watching a movie, you have to check whether it is U film or U/A film. Because, if it is U/A film, according to the advice of Central Board of Film Certificatin, parent’s guidence must need for children below the age of 12. So, be careful with these films.

3. Parents who are smart

As a parent, you have full responsibility to teach values to your children. This job is easy for you with the help of cinema. In fact, in our Tamil societies and in many societies, Cinema played a vital role for social revolution, growth and transformation. But you must be very careful while introducing cinema to your children. Because many times, the audience will absorb whatever taught in cinema without proper critical thinking. It will show greater impacts on the ideology of your children. So just be careful on what your children watch. Horror films and crime films are extremely dangerous for children. But don’t completely refuse entire cinema. This is also bad move. According to me, your child must need some entertainment. To do this job, i have some suggestions for you.

A. INTRODUCE SCIENCE CHANNELS

Channels like BBC Earth, National Geography & Discovery will help you a lot. Cartoons are also good entertainment for children. But allow the limited time only. Teach your children how to control them and don’t try to control your children like robots. This will make their childhood bitter.

B. GOOD CINEMA IS MUST FOR every HUMAN

Some of the good films I recommend to your children are,

i. பிச்சைக்காரன்

ii. வேதம் புதிது

iii. திருடன் போலீஸ்

iv. கூர்கா

v. நெஞ்சமுண்டு நேர்மையுண்டு

vi. பறி ஏறும் பெருமாள்

vii. சாட்டை

viii. புதிய சாட்டை

These FILMS are really good for your children. They will make them to think and teach good values. And children must need these thinking to understand and survive in this society. So, if possible first you have to watch these films, then you have to watch along with your children.

— CJ seven