Effects of Violent
Entertainment On Children

In a lecture for the Children's Institute International conference in June 1999, Dr. James Garino and Dr. Bruce Perry explained how kids were affected by early experiences of child abuse and/or domestic abuse. These experiences may nurture a violent manner, however, many other professionals are pointing their fingers at entertainment violence as a training course for children to commit murder.

Many Canadians are becoming concerned with the amount of violent entertainment, taking note of the many recent characteristics of mass murders in the United States. For example, the case of Michael Carneal, the 14 yr. old killer in Panduca, Kentucky helps to support this notion of concern based on violent entertainment, and the increase of violence among our youths. Carneal had never fired a handgun before walking into a prayer meeting at school. Here he planted his feet apart, held the pistol out before him and steadily, unwaveringly, fired eight shots, hitting four of his targets in the head and four in the upper torso. Carneal became a deadly killing machine through hundreds of hours of practice at violent “first person shooter” video games.

According to Lt. Colonel David Grossman (U.S.A retired), humans have to be brutalized and conditioned to make them kill. Until US soldiers were drilled in firing robotically at human shapes, rather than at traditional bulls-eye targets, only 15% of them could bring themselves to shoot at enemy soldiers. The minds of children are not like adults, they are formed and deeply shaped by what they see and hear.

It's hard to argue with Grossman because wherever television has been newly introduced, a steep increase in violent assaults occur exactly 15 years later, just when toddlers have reached adolescence. Even though many pediatricians and child psychologists have concluded that there is an overwhelming link between television violence and aggressive behavior, the grown-ups in the entertainment industry have yet to acknowledge that the negative effects of their craft is taking a toll on the young minds of our future.