Television, etc...

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The Child Under the Influence of TV, Cartoons and Radio

by Werner A. Fabian, MD



(The following article was originally published in the May 1992 issue
of

the Huronia Waldorf School Newsletter.)



Children are not little adults! It takes many years for a newborn child
to

develop into a full-grown adult. The newborn's nervous system is still

reacting in an immature manner, as are the sense organs. Nerves are

"unprotected" and "unshielded" because the myelin sheaths around the
nerve

fibers are not fully developed. For example, when sunlight strikes the

baby's face or when one talks to it in a quiet room, a startled
reaction, a

sudden uncoordinated, quick movement of the extremities, sometimes

accompanied by a tremor, can frequently be observed.



Parents experience early contact with the inner being, the spiritual

reality of the newborn child. The child makes eye contact, responds to
the

mother's voice with a soft sound, follows an object with its eyes,
takes

prolonged looks at new colors in the environment (the infant "drinks"
in

the color), and begins to listen to new sounds. The young child's sense

perceptions provide a picture of its environment. This picture the
child

takes in as true because it has complete trust and confidence in its

parents. At this stage, the ability to think critically has not yet

developed.



Rudolf Steiner said, "The child is entirely devoted to the world. The

entire child...is like a sense organ. If the child is exposed to the
light,

the light vibrates not only through the nervous system, but vibrates

through the entire organism...and as the eye is devoted to the world
and

lives completely in the light, so the child lives entirely in its

environment." In other words, sense perceptions penetrate more easily
into

children than they do into adults. What come from the environment goes
into

the child "unfiltered, uncritical."



Let us keep these thoughts in mind and look now at the environment in
which

our children grow up. I would like to quote Uwe Stawe, professor of

pediatrics at the Medical School, University of Witten-Herdeke,
Germany:

"We assume the parents are well-meaning in their intent to create a

pleasing environment for their children, but they often surround their

children with a distorted reality. Adults have created caricatured
animals,

usually by distorting their real forms and features. The artists put

exaggerated expressions on their faces, misappropriating their bodies:
for

example, or four toes instead of five, sickly distended bellies, and
dress

them in a bizarre fashion. Such cartoons express adult fantasy, which
is

born out of the world or the real formative life forces. Cartoons are

devious mock-ups of etheric life-forming forces. These cartoon figures,

caricatured and distorted creatures, can be found everywhere -- on baby

clothes, wallpaper, toys and china. Since children learn by imitating

during their formative years, it's no wonder they imitate the 'funny'

creatures, acting like Donald Duck and dressing like Spiderman. Also,
the

colors are disagreeable: hot pinks and fluorescent oranges, blues,
greens,

yellows. The caricatured creatures that 'speak' on TV with squeaky
voices

are also used as distorted voices for talking dolls."



The environment of today's children is full of "adult" noise:
continuously

running TV sets and pop music, often with a hard, rhythmic beat and
often

at an insanely high volume. What do such distorted pictures do to the

child's inner life? What do such sounds do to these children? They have
not

chosen to hear such music or noise, but their ears and bodies are
exposed

to it.



Children are exposed to many hours of TV each day. It is probably the
most

powerful technology contributing to the distorted worldview that our

children are getting. It is making them sick, physically and

psychologically. We observe some children with restless sleep,
nightmares

and crying spells which reflect some of the "indigestible" perceptions
from

the past day.



Doctors Gloeckler and Goebel, both pediatricians, write in their book,
A

Guide to Child Health, "These children meet other people without
shyness or

reserve, but do not attempt to have real personal contact with them.
They

cannot meet other people's calm gaze without staring or making a face.
They

ask superficial questions without particular interest in the answers.
They

respond to questions with superficial stereotyped answers. They do not

develop a very deep interest in anything. Their emotions are primitive
and

inclined to be heartless. Their thinking moves in rapid and predictable

patterns. Speech remains primitive. The ability to make sense of what
is

being read is diminished. Even the spoken word hardly evokes the
child's

own mental pictures, and the child's imagination is stamped with
ready-made

pictures and associations. Such children read less and prefer to
confine

themselves to pictures found in comic books and to animated cartoons.

Active and free imagination from what is read or seen does not arise,
with

the result that the ability to concentrate is severely reduced. Later
on, a

tendency to addiction to alcohol, drugs and medication is seen as
children

become used to getting mental stimuli without effort, simply by
pressing a

button. The development of the will is radically disrupted because
children

sit passively in front of the TV and forget how to occupy themselves by

active imitation of real life, as they would otherwise do. After a
period

of watching TV the children are prone to release pent up energy in a

chaotic and destructive or aggressive outburst."



Rudolf Steiner spoke these important words: "If you ask where the

disposition of a useful physical organism in the adult has originated,
you

have to look at what has affected the child and was caused by the

environment; and what went into the muscles, into the blood
circulation,

into the respiration, into the entire organism. It is an imprint of
what we

have done (or not done) in its environment. For the way man walks
through

life until old age, he has to thank or not to thank the impressions
that

the environment has inflicted on him when he was a small child."



What can we do as parents? We can study the concepts of child
development

as outlined by the Waldorf method and in Dr. Rudolf Steiner's

anthroposophically extended medicine. As these concepts and ideas take
on

life in us, we develop a sense of responsibility to create a natural
and

truthful environment for our children. Dr. Gloeckler writes, "The best

policy is to cut out television altogether until such time as the

development of the will and the emotional life have become complete.
This

stage will have been reached between the ages of thirteen and fifteen."
In

any event, watching television and movies should be absolutely taboo
until

the child reaches the age of 10. Between the ages of 10 and 15 there is

room to compromise according to individual circumstances.



Generally speaking, the more sure the parents are of their convictions,
the

more the children will accept what the parents say. But if even one
parent

thinks the children are missing something by not "being with it," there

will be endless discussions and finally a very unsatisfactory
compromise.

If a child watches a program or the news, parents should make an effort
to

help the child digest what has been seen by talking about it. This at
least

helps the child to absorb the material personally and not just lap it
up.



Up to the age of 16 it's best that the parents choose, watch, and
discuss

the programs with their children. After that age the children can be
left

to choose freely. If they have sufficiently developed other interests,

television will no longer have an addictive power over them. Ideally
the

television set should be kept in a room which the children may not

generally enter. After all that has been said about providing an

environment for the children that is worthy of imitation, children will

nevertheless accept that there are things like smoking, drinking and

television which are only for adults.



Like other bad influences in our civilization which "experts" tell us
to

tolerate, TV will be put in its place only by responsible and free

individuals who make their own decisions through the benefit of their
own

insight.