Through focused, thematic campaigns, and with a positive perspective,
we will heighten awareness about how the messages sent by toys
and media influence the thoughts, attitudes and behaviors of our children,
and we will promote thoughtful and informed decisions about the
design and manufacture, the purchase, and the response to toys and
media, to which our youth are exposed.
We are asking people to stop and think about the messages toys and
media are sending to our children, and, possibly more importantly, the messages we as
parents and role models are sending to our children by encouraging
or allowing them to play with certain toys and media.
Consider the mixed messages we are sending to our youth and expecting
them to be able to process in a clear and healthy way. We want our
kids to treat others with respect and tolerance, yet so many toys
and media encourage aggression and fatal violence. Many times the images
presented eliminate the true results and consequences of the violence
featured. In movies and video games, characters who are attacked or
beaten do not bruise or bleed - sometimes they don't even die!
Or if they do, they get back up to "play" another round. We all know this is
not a realistic representation of the effects of violence on living
creatures. What happens in the mind of a child when violence has
no consequences, when fighting and mortal combat are considered
games, and war is entertainment. Visit our
research page to get the facts.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a military historian and author of On
Killing, states that "the inflicting of pain and suffering has become
a source of entertainment and vicarious pleasure rather than revulsion.
We are learning to kill, and we are learning to like it."
Children are not born violent--research shows that violence is a learned
behavior. And it is a behavior we are teaching to younger and younger
children.
