(NSFW) What are the side effects of letting children watch what ever they like?

They keep watching, and don’t do any homework or chores. Then they go to bed really late and can’t wake up in the morning.

How old are the kids?

This will get them in the bad habit of staying up very late and then wanting to sleep very late.

Certain programming, depending on the age of the child, may require adult supervision to provide structure and explanation to what is shown on TV. The first thing that comes to mind is the portrayal of Sexual situations. Kids can get the wrong idea of how to act and what to expect from the opposite sex.
Playing shooter games is fun, but in too large of doses may de-sensitize kids to violent inappropriate behaviours. Also staying up too late can cause problems with being sleepy or hyper (that is what my son did when he got tired) and not retaining the daily lessons.

@jca I was 5 and when I had my own television and 10 for Nintendo… When I was living with my mom the video game system , Atari was in the living room and didn’t have anything other than clothes and transformers in my room.

Haha…why is this NSFW?
Are we letting preschoolers watch porn?

I picture a cave-mom dropping off her toddler in the woods: “Here’s your little bow and spear, try not to get eaten by anything. I’ll be back in a couple hours”.

The electronic jungle is fine if the child has been prepared for it. As a substitute for parenting, it’s a firm no, but teach a child how to be discerning with your guidance and you should be able to judge how equipped s/he is to handle making unsupervised choices.

Side-effects-? They end up as Fluther jellies, yeah babeee-! : )

@fluthernutter I watched soft core porn since grade 6 ,I had easy access from the French channel. Also I had super channel since the same time, I just had to skip school to watch. Then the government put all the good stuff on after 9pm.

@talljasperman Generally, I would say it’s not a good idea. But in light of your history, it’s particularly troubling.

Early exposure to sexualized material is sometimes used as a grooming technique by sexual offenders. I wonder if your father was doing this passively?

I’m sorry you had to go through that.

@talljasperman and @fluthernutter
I was not allowed tv or games as a child, but I did find my parent’s stash of porn and toys. I didn’t relate it to my parents, in particular, but it did form a lot of my ideas of sex.
Point being, it didn’t matter what the format was.

We, your children, will discover many things. Be there to explain and take the shame out of it.
Then you won’t have to worry about what we do when we are alone.

Oh I don’t know, maybe they will commit a mass murder one day. You’ll always wonder.