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

Parents urged to supervise children's TV-viewing habits

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Parents must teach children right from wrong, and safe from unsafe, while youngsters are watching cartoons, experts said.

The comments followed a court verdict in Jiangsu province, in a case in which two boys suffered severe burns while mimicking a scene from the popular cartoon series Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf. The boys' hospital bills were more than 260,000 yuan ($42,800).

Donghai County People's Court in Lianyungang ruled on Wednesday that the legal guardians of the boy who set the fire must assume 60 percent of the costs. Creative Power Entertaining in Guangdong province, the producer of the show, must pay 15 percent, and the boys' parents must pay the rest.

"Cartoon producers should rigorously review the scenes and plots that are inappropriate for minors in their products and give warnings like 'don't imitate'," the verdict said. "There is a cause-and-effect relationship between the case and the violent scenarios in the cartoon."

The accident occurred on April 6, when three boys in Mawang village of Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, imitated a scene in the series. An 8-year-old boy tied two brothers, aged 5 and 8, to a tree and ignited some hay on the ground.

The younger boy suffered burns on 80 percent of his body, and the older one 40 percent.

The brothers, surnamed Li, were released from a hospital in Beijing in October after months of treatment.

Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf features battles between a herd of goats and several wolves. The animated show, introduced in 2005, is shown on 50 channels nationwide.