Children should be allowed to watch TV during a school week

I am standing as 'pro' on the debate topic. I believe that children should be allowed to watch TV during a school week. --------------------------- Meaning of school week --------------------------- "In most schools, the school week consists of days Monday through Thursday or Friday. However, in some countries (such as France) it goes from Monday to Saturday. There is no school on Sundays, and some afternoon classes may be cancelled or skipped. A few schools are cancelling Fridays, due to fuel costs. In Japan the school week is Monday to Friday (though the majority of students in Japan go to school on Saturdays and Sundays for test preparations, athletics, etc)."[1] ------------ Arguments ------------ A1: There is no need to prevent children from watching TV. While nowadays, inappropriate and violent content is almost found running on every TV, it can be limited with parental control.[2] With parental control, the parents of a child can limit the time a child spends on watching TV and allow only appropriate content to be shown. If several campaigns are run to encourage parents to do this, children will not experience violent content or other inappropriate content, such as sexually explicit. A2: With proper control, watching TV does not prevent children from doing homework or being active. If a child's day in school lasts from 8 AM to 1 PM, then the child can spend one hour on sports hobbies, two hours with friends, one hour in reading, one hour in doing homework, two hours on watching TV, and until 10PM the child can be with his parents, and so forth. This balance on watching TV can easily be set by parents, and as I have demonstrated, it will not prevent a child from being active or doing his/her homework, nor will he/she be affected by inappropriate content. This can be achieved successfully through parental control. A3: TV programs for children inspire them, entertain them, help them in understanding of reality, and increase their knowledge. When children grow, they look up to being what they like. When they watch funny animated cartoon films like 'Bugs Bunny'[3], their happiness increases, and the happier they are, the greater chances that they will grow up in a healthy way. Other films, such as computer generated shows, can be educative, which helps in increasing knowledge. A good example of such a show is 'Sid the Science Kid'[4]. This film introduces science to children and helps them gain interest in scientific and educational things, which leads to a positive start at school, and increases the chances of good educational results. A4: A television itself is not harmful if used in moderate amounts. In older days, it was believed that a TV damaged the eyesight. It was, in fact, true. That was due to poor technology that let the TV release too much of harmful rays. However, modern technology has made such rays very limited, and they are not nearly as harmful as in older days. It is also known that staring too much at the TV is harmful, and that is true even today. Looking at something for a long time without blinking can lead to e.g. headache. However, it is also harmful to stare too much at a book or a teacher. ------------ Conclusion ------------ Spending too much time on something, or making use of something in a wrong way, is always negative. This is not limited to television only, therefore I do not believe that children should not be able to watch TV during a school week. However, I do believe that parents should set controls, and make it actually healthy for their children to watch TV. I look forward to a response from my opponent. I hope that this will be a debate of high quality. ------------ References ------------ [1]http://en.wikipedia.org... [2]http://www.webopedia.com... [3]http://en.wikipedia.org... [4]http://www.pbs.org...