Violence and its effects on children and families - Research Paper Example

Many video games these days are based on the theme of violence. Violence through media is a very silent yet a very effective way of changing the minds of the young generation especially children. “[T]he motion picture, music recording, and electronic game industries attempt to market the same products to children that they label as unsuitable for children” (Cornell, 2006, p. 117). Children are drawn toward video games in which they have to do target killing. Anything from rape to genocide and drug dealing can be the activity in a video game or a movie.

In the present age, children spend a lot of time watching television and playing video games. Gradually, these activities become ingrained in their personalities. They develop a level of comfort with such activities. Television programs showing children kidnapping and murder teach them the ways and means to do these acts of violence (Freedman, 2002, p. 5). The more they watch it happen, the more the negative or at least, awkward image of these activities fades away. Children become used to seeing violence and becoming part of it.

This reflects in their behavior in the form of rudeness, lack of respect for the elders, lack of discipline, and physical and verbal abuse. Parents adopt different ways of counseling their children but not many get successful in disciplining their children after they have been spoilt. If parents take it too lightly, the chances of children getting spoilt are maximized. If parents take it too seriously and scold their children for such behaviors and activities, their relation with their children is distorted.

Parents are perplexed and curious which affects their own lives as well. Family violence is commonly observed in the present age. Domestic violence is defined as “any violent or abusive behavior (whether physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, verbal, financial, etc.) that is used by one person to control and dominate another with whom they have or have had a relationship” (Pearson, Hester, and Harwin, 2007, p. 18). Chances of family violence are maximized in distorted families. Family issues that often become the cause of violence include but are not limited to divorce, teenage pregnancy, and step-parenting.

Usually, in these cases, at least one of the parents is not able to pay due attention toward the children. Children require care and love from their parents that they are deprived of in such cases. Divorce draws them away from one of the two parents. The emotional and physical gap thus created instills negative feelings in the children that are further strengthened with the passage of time because of lack of parental supervision. Likewise, children born to and raised by single parents are stereotyped and grow up with an inferiority complex.

As they reach adolescence, they tend to join groups and gangs for identity. These groups make them part of their violent activities, and children develop into criminals. Many children are abused by their step-parents either physically or verbally or both. Many step-parents do not accept children of their spouses from their first marriages as part of their family. The hatred shows up in the form of verbal abuse. Many step-parents also abuse the children physically, thus leaving them with a life-long trauma and suffering.

Some children share their experiences with their biological parents while others do not. In either case, the