Has Simon Cowell gone to far?

Parenting |

Parent Coach and former teacher Sue Atkins tells My Baby Radio why she feels “sneer and jeer” TV has gone to far.

“I love those Saturday evenings at home with the kids watching Ant and Dec and sometimes having a take-away in front of the TV but something happened on Saturday that changed all that.

“Britain’s Got Talent” was on in the sitting room and as the acts proceeded to come on and be denigrated, humiliated and mocked I felt deeply uncomfortable watching this so called “entertainment.”

Paul Watson, one of Britain’s foremost TV directors won a BAFTA award on Sunday as he was one of the first directors of reality TV. What was fascinating was that he used his acceptance speech to attack the bullying culture behind a lot of today’s reality TV.

Paul Watson’s vision back in the 1960’s was to inform and to show real life, warts and all, which was quite a break from tradition in those days but not to mock and humiliate the people he was filming.

Reality TV has become some sort of circus reminiscent of the Romans in the Coliseum baying for blood or like the humiliation suffered by John Merrick portrayed in “The Elephant Man” by John Hurt.

This sort of programme laughs at and not with its participants and encourages the audience to ridicule, jeer and belittle the contestants showing them no respect or any dignity.

Just why people want to have their 15 minutes of “fame” regardless of the cost to their own personal self esteem is to me rather strange and beyond my comprehension but I am not judging them as my main point here as a Mum of two teenage kids myself and Parent Coach is:

· What values are we teaching our kids here?
· What sort of example are we setting them – that’s it’s OK to mock and bully people weaker and more vulnerable than ourselves?
· Is laughing at and ridiculing other people acceptable and fun?

It didn’t enrich me either for watching it as I felt shabby and guilty and while I may not be too popular over the next few Saturdays in my house by not allowing my kids to watch it I hope I’m setting them an example of compassion and dignity and teaching them to respect the dignity of others. And no, I’m not a kill joy as I love to laugh and have fun dancing round the kitchen table to Madonna’s new “4 Minutes” using the pepper mill as a mike but I just want to choose to be a different role model for my own kids.

Knowing what’s important to you, what you believe in and what you stand for helps you get clear about your values so that you can easily pass them on to your kids in your words, actions and behaviour.

So grab a cup of coffee and a pen and paper and how about asking yourself:

· What are my values? Just write out all the things that are important to you like , telling the truth, being kind, working hard, eating healthily, doing your best, having determination, being reliable or being patient – whatever it is for you
· Then look over your list and put them in order of importance to you.
· Then ask yourself how am I living those values at the moment and how am I passing those values down to my kids? What are they picking up from me?
· You might discover things you might like to change so don’t beat yourself up or feel guilty just make a decision now to make some small changes this week to tweak some of them.

Being clear about your values makes parenting a lot easier because you know what you want to pass on to your family and you know where you are going in the bigger picture – so have fun discovering and exploring what you stand for and what your priorities are. And don’t be afraid to make a stand in some small way for the things you believe to be important.

“Just one person taking action can
inspire others to do the same.”
Leslie C. Aguilar

Just a thought!

Sue Atkins is a Parent Coach, former Deputy Head with 22 years teaching experience, mother to two teenage children and is an NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer trained by Paul McKenna. She has written many books on self esteem, toddlers and teenagers and has a collection of Parenting Made Easy Toolkits available from her website soon. She is also the author of “Raising Happy Children for Dummies” one in the black and yellow series published worldwide and available from all good bookshops.

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