We are all familiar with the TV Parental Guidance letter ratings that appear at the start of most television shows noting whether a program is suitable for young children or is only suitable for more mature audiences. We also can see further descriptors that appear regarding language, sexual content and violence—but how good are these ratings at protecting our young children from being exposed to inappropriate content?
Gabrielli et al. (10.1542/peds.2016-0487) opted to look at this issue by reviewing 323 episodes and over 9000 episode minutes of 17 television shows that spanned ratings from suitability for children under 7 (TV-Y7) through programming for mature audiences (TV-M). The authors coded the episodes for risk behaviors and violence comparing the overall rating category with the prevalence of those behaviors.
The findings to indicate the presence of risk behaviors independent of the rating given, with violence prevalent overall in 70% of episodes, and other risk taking behaviors not far behind. Sadly the TV parental ratings did not discriminate as they were designed to do when it comes to violence (although sex and gory violence did increase as the child ratings advanced by age) but did better for substance abuse (being less in the TV-Y7 category).
Clearly those who assign the parental guidance ratings may need to do a better job than they currently do—or is it just that our tolerance for violence and risk-taking behaviors has broadened over the years, enabling those who make the ratings to accept a higher threshold for violence than perhaps some of us who have been watching TV for more than half a century.
Our journal has published numerous studies over the past several years on the media’s role in influencing children and their behaviors—and if the rating systems we use to help point our children to programming that is appropriate for their age and developmental stage are not valid or reliable—we look forward to seeing improved rating criteria that help parents provide better guidance of what their children should and should not be watching—assuming the new soon-to-be-published AAP media policy recommends some type of selective watching for children.
