Finding out what your kids watch on TV or on the internet could be as important to your kids' health and wellness as making sure they wear bike helmets.
According to an article published in the September issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, teens and younger children are learning about sex from the media and the message can be dangerous.
Parents might feel hesitant to talk to their kids about sex. However, when parents shy away from talking to their kids, by default then the parents are encouraging their kids to learn about sex from less reliable sources such as the internet, TV, and movies.
The content in the videos, shows, or music content is not the only place where kids hear sexually explicit messages. Major advertising campaigns for products including erectile dysfunction drugs constantly play during daytime and primetime TV.
Here are some of main findings of the study according to healthfinder.gov:
- 70% of teen shows contain sexual content
- Less than 10% of the sexual content in these shows talk about the consequences of sex such as contracting an STD
- U.S leads the western world in teen pregnancy rates
- One in four American teens have an STD.
- U.S. children spend seven hours and more a day watching or listening to media that may include sexually explicit content-- music, movies, television shows, magazines and the Internet.
Photo of laptop by bigpresh
