Children should be allowed to watch TV during a school week

The arguments she represented are quite interesting. ----------- Rebuttals ----------- R1: My opponent claims that it is not always the case that parents are cautious about what their children watch on television. I have no objection to this. However, I made no opposing claim myself. I did not argue saying that all parents are cautious about what their children watch on TV, but I argued by giving a solution to a problem, namely the one with regards to inappropriate content. Moving on, my opponent said that young children watch shows such as "South Park" or "Family Guy", which is not appropriate for them. Once again, I agree, but I have come with a solution to this. R2: My opponent claims that particularly children are vulnerable to the media content, and I have already mentioned this myself. The argument my opponent makes after saying this is that ". .. If they [the children] see a super skinny girl on T. V they may be inclined to eat less and eventually turn to anorexia. Children often come to believe T. V is an accurate representation of how society should be. " This is when harmful content comes to question. I agree that when young girls see a skinny girl on TV, they may want to be like her. However, on child-friendly programs, where one sees more of toys and other entertaining things, they do not see too much of 'super skinny' girls. With such girls possibly being shown, despite being on a child-friendly TV program, campaigns can be made in order to spread the message about the harmful effects of such content, and hopefully a decline of it will be seen through the years following the campaign. On the other side, I can also argue against the same content on something besides TV. I will do that in my other refutation point. R3: My opponent tries to tackle my argument about a time appointment for watching TV by asking: "What if the shows the child wants to watch are not playing during the times set aside for T. V? " - This is a good question. However, the time schedule example for a day I made in argument number 2 puts 'watching TV' from the time range between 6PM and 8PM. If a child only watches TV at this time, then he will most likely always watch the same shows, unless they in rare cases move to other hours of the day. But this is a good lesson for the children: not everything you like lasts forever. Besides this, a TV is not necessarily used to TV programs. A DVD player can be connected to the TV, large sets of TV shows can be bought in DVD formats, and they can always be played for the child. This way, he/she will not miss any particular show. My opponent asked: "Also, what if those shows are longer than the time slot set aside? " - As I made it clear, choosing a specific time range for some particular shows will mostly likely prevent such a problem. If "Bugs Bunny" and "Sid the Science Kid", for example, run from 6:15 PM to 8 PM, then the child should simply watch TV at those times. R4: My opponent says that books can also be educational. Yes, and I did not deny that. Moving on, she says. "These [link] books can be often more entertaining than sitting in front of a screen. " - I agree, but I can say the same for TV against books. Moreover, my opponent seems to be unaware of the fact that there are books depicting 'super skinny' girls. [1] A good example is "Barbie". She is depicted as a beautiful and skinny young girl. However, it does not mean that we should ban all books, but let the parents choose wisely. R5: My opponent makes a point about too much of TV being harmful. I have made this clear myself, saying that too much of anything is negative. Moving on, my opponent says that lack of exercise and socialization can be a problem. I agree, but following my example from A2, this will not be a problem. My conclusion is the same as in the last round. I thank my opponent. ------------- References ------------- [1]. http://www.ngatinggroup.com.hk...