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11/09/2012

Child minders and the 'African Magic' saga!


Have you noticed this unpleasant trend? I refuse to be amused by it no matter how hard I have been cajoled! I have no issues with the Africa Magic channel, but the message passed by many TV channels to the younger viewers concerns me.

I have noticed that these video clips leave our children with more negative than positive values. As adults, we may able to discern or discriminate what values we choose to imbibe BUT children must be given a clean bill! 

So, this is my issue with it. There is no substantial educative or informative  gains for kids in these movies or clips in question. Most of their content are adult based and not child-friendly. I literally want to jump out from my seat when I get some TV time and my kids are around me. Why? To flip the channels as we are barraged with all kinds of embarrassing scenes!

There are some sides to the matter! One is the fact that parents are oblivious of what goes on when they are away from home. Some of these nannies take charge of the TV and insist on kids watching their own interests. In some cases, the kids are threatened or subdued to not tell their parents. In this, I think there is always a way to ensuring some rules are followed around the home. You must consistently insist clearly that these channels are banned for kids in YOUR home. You could threaten that you are able to gain possible knowledge from service providers - do whatever can curb the trend.

Another is where kids are allowed to watch these clips because the child minders do not appreciate the importance of visual learning. Some parents unknowingly can't distinguish good or bad viewing for kids. There are  thousands of affordable and fun educational visual clips for children.  There should be strict orders that the kids be allowed to watch educative programs. They could even be comics! Their function includes providing a visual representation of something that regular text or oral presentation cannot do as well as contributing to oral language skills. Visual clips helps children break down information and manage it on their own which is in turn more memorable. Whatever they watch will make an abstract idea become more concrete. It is imperative that we regulate their viewing exposure.

5 comments:

  1. Visual learning.... That's an interesting perspective for parents like us. Thx 4 d eye opener. Keep it up,LC.

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  2. Lol!! Just yesterday, I was discussing this very issue with a colleague. She has come up with an ingenious solution. Leave he TV on a kid-friendly channel and lock the remote in her room! I've even condidered barring Africa magic direct from source, DSTv. Its just sooo unproductive and will do nothing but raise fearful children. Its as bad as MTV in my opinion.

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  3. I really see this as a none issue because we can put a child lock on the programs we don't want our children to watch and we can insist that our child minders do not bring these CDs into our homes. If they do, then we must simply take strict measures by letting them for crying out loud, they are not doing us a favor!

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  4. Hmmm.... We really need to pay attention to what the children are watching including such programmes that are supposedly meant for them. As for Nigerian movies??? I rest my case!!!!

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  5. Africa magic is super crazy....seriously. Absolutely nothing for kids to watch there,even the home videos are not even educative for adults talk of kids.The current trend in home videos are Runz...Runzzz and more RUNZ. What exactly are kids supposed to learn from it? Cant they show positive message from the beginning of a movie to the end? Cant they bring family oriented programmes and involve more kids in their movies? Apart from the KKB show on TV ,what other kid friendly show do they have? Bellaz

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