Other child-care professionals insist that TV violence is at least contributing to the increasingly aggressive behaviour of children. Alan Leschied, assistant director of the London, Ont., Family Court Clinic, said that the facility treats about 200 adolescents a year from across southwestern Ontario. He said that all the children are facing criminal charges and have been referred by the courts. Leschied said that when he began working at the clinic 15 years ago, most children were charged with theft, breaking and entering or other property crimes. Now, almost half the boys who are referred to the clinic are charged with sexual offences.
Many teachers support the claim that television is having a major effect on the way children behave.
Keith Sticking, principal of Queen Elizabeth High School in Halifax, said that many students are aggressively rude, behaviour he attributes to the influence of television and popular music. Ian Malcolm, a high school drama and English teacher in Kingston, Ont., said that students unconsciously learn and mimic aggressive attitudes from television, even from apparently harmless situation comedies. And they are prickly with each other and with teachers. Besides influencing behaviour, television may also be affecting students' ability to learn. Malcolm said that students raised on television are passive, have short attention spans and become twitchy in class quickly.