Parents urged to supervise children's TV-viewing habits_美文

Parents urged to supervise children's TV-viewing habits

In the TV series, Big Big Wolf is beaten nearly 10,000 times and the sheep are nearly cooked more than 800 times before they escape, some parents said online while expressing their concerns over the show.

"Apart from violence, I'm afraid the practice of Big Big Wolf's wife, who beats her husband all the time, may harm children's understanding of marriage," said Huang Hao, a Shanghai mother of a 5-year-old boy.

Parents should bear more responsibility for what their children watch on TV and provide guidance, as China doesn't have a rating system for films and cartoon series, experts said.

"Parents should watch the cartoons with their children and tell them what's real and what's fictional," said Zeng Fanlin, a professor from the preschool and special-education school affiliated with East China Normal University.

Some kindergarten teachers said parents should have better sense in selecting TV programs for children.

"We see obviously that some children, who prefer cartoons involving fights, show a stronger inclination to fool around with their buddies," said Li Xiaoyu, a teacher at Shanghai Xiehe Longbai Xijiao Preschool.

Li Xiaoyu said schools and families should educate children about fire and electricity and let children know they can be deadly.

Cases involving children wrongly imitating cartoons are not rare.

A 4-year-old boy jumped from his eighth-floor home in February 2010 in Wuhan, Hubei province, believing he could fly like the cartoon figure Ultraman. In April, a 5-year-old girl jumped from a sixth-floor window with an umbrella in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, mimicking another cartoon scenario. Both children survived.