Watching television has become a dominant childhood activity today since its invention a couple of decades ago. A significant number of children are reported to spend most of their time on some form of a screen. The extent to which children engage with various television programs has a significant impact on their overall development. Childhood is a critical stage in human growth and development. Since television plays a critical role in their cognitive, mental, emotional, and social outcomes, it is exceedingly important to determine the types of programs children view. A show I would propose is one that is designed to positively impact child development on mental, physical, educational, social, and psychological levels.
An educational television show suitable for child development that I propose is one that covers the everyday life of a typical child. Essentially, a show that incorporates various aspects of life, including family, school, friendship, home, and neighbourhoods. In doing so, I would introduce various issues that occur in everyday life such as bullying, passing tests, helping a stranger, and sports among many others. The purpose of the program is to educate the target audience. more specifically, show children things they would experience in society and how to overcome them. In doing so, the show will serve as an educational platform that will aim to improve a children's intellectual capacity.
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The show's characterization will feature animated human characters. Although the television program will depict everyday events in a child's life, it will incorporate 3D human characters. The reason behind the choice of the characterization is strategic to drawing viewership among children. With animation massively gaining traction in children-oriented shows, new shows need to follow the trend. Another factor for featuring such character is to make the show fun, engaging, and entertaining while still maintaining its educational aspect. The reason is that children are more likely to watch and engage with animated shows than one with actual humans.
As mentioned above, the content will include events of everyday life of a child. The selection of the content type follows a strict criterion for a quality educational program for children. The first element is the educational value it offers. The most important consideration when designing content for young children is the extent to which they can learn as much as they seek entertainment. The content will be inspired by one of the famous children cartoons known as Caillou , and it will centre on learning critical life lessons and solving problems with adult guidance. Another element observed in selecting the content is vital messages and role models. The show will be about reflecting values that parents would like their children to absorb.
Each episode will be shot and themed on a particular life lesson and problem-solving. The episodes will be made as realistic as possible, and they will depict a particular issue a child is likely to directly or indirectly encounter, how to resolve it, and lessons learnt. For example, a character will get picked up by bullies at school. The character sulks, and when asked by their parent what could be wrong, they express fear, sadness and frustrations. These are realistic reactions to bullying. A narrator will announce the character's true intentions and explain their motives. In the end, the character will learn a life lesson about how to go about the incident and prevent bullying in the future. Through this, viewers (children) will learn too.
The target audience for the proposed show is between three and seven years. Essentially, the viewers will constitute preschoolers, an age range where children undergo rapid cognitive, social, and emotional development. The episodes will capture themes such as making and keeping friends, welcoming new siblings, caring for pets, finishing homework, helping an elderly neighbour, caring for the environment and the likes. Throughout the episodes, values such as empathy, love, forgiveness, openness, and communication will be maintained. Each episode will end by stirring extensive conversations between parents or caregivers and children where they discuss actions, lessons, and values observed in the show. Also, the episodes will be short and precise to the critical themes due to limited attention spans in children.
The justification for the program to preschoolers is tremendously many and substantial. First, the proposed educative television show is designed to promote healthy child development. Yaseen et al. (2016) suggest television and media, in general, have a vast potential to affect a child's growth and behaviours. The impact can either be positive or negative, depending on the nature of the programs. Therefore, with the increasing television consumerism, especially among young people, there is a need for educational content capable of impacting children's overall wellness. The proposed program is one of the few programs that feature requirements of a good show as outlined by the ministry of education. It is designed to improve children's intellectual, mental, behavioural, and social wellbeing.
Secondly, there is a need to leverage television to raise healthy children. According to Richert et al. (2011), children watch television extensively. In the process, they learn from what they view and apply such lessons in their day to day life. A majority of the current programs focus mostly on entertainment with minimal attention given to comprehensive education. Furthermore, even those that do, they do not accurately reflect real-life socio-cognitive dynamics of a child's life. Therefore, children end up developing certain expectations and undesirable behaviours. The proposed show will exist to address the issue above. It features relevant social, environmental, technological, cultural, and economic dimensions of society which will contribute to modelling healthy children.
Thirdly, the structure and design of the program will instil knowledge, values, and offer insights that will help children mature into well-rounded adults. The transition from childhood into adulthood requires a healthy environment which also involves monitoring what a child watch. Developing a healthy child is not enough, ensuring they are prepared for adulthood is essential. The show will serve as a good teacher, capable of transforming children into role models. They will learn about history, nature, resources, creatures, family structure, and more. In addition to instilling knowledge and values, the show will also equip children with the most critical life skill—problem-solving—to prepare them for adulthood.
The current body of literature establishes that television and screen media play a critical role in child development. The impact can either be positive or negative. Thus, what a child views on the screen matters in terms of the behaviours they display, their emotional state, intellectual capacity, physical wellness, and social life. The proposed television show is design for children aged between three and seven with consideration of the value of television too early childhood development. It includes features of excellent and quality educational content for young children and their needs regarding mental, physical, emotional, cognitive, and social development.
References
Richert, R. A., Robb, M. B., & Smith, E. I. (2011). Media as Social Partners: The Social Nature of Young Children's Learning from Screen Media. Child Development , 82 (1), 82-95.
Yaseen, M. B., Alqadi, H. M., Al-Barri, Q., & Yaseen, O. B. (2016). The Effectiveness of Televised Children Programs in the Linguistic Development of Kindergarten Children from Teachers' Viewpoints. Journal of Education and Practice , 7 (14), 119-128.
