Parents: what is your child listening to?...

In one of my previous posts (on 20/12/08: http://www.muizzu.com/2008/12/parents-what-is-your-daughter-watching.html) I tried to highlight the importance of being mindful of what our young children, especially girls, are exposed to from the local and global media and the entertainment industry.

I would like to stress more on this topic, based on a recent US study into how music and its lyrics affect the sexual behaviour of our teenage girls and boys.

It was found that teens listening to songs of sex-degrading lyrics are more likely to indulge in sexual behaviour at young age than others who don't.

Brian Primack, the study lead author, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Wednesday, March 4 that "These lyrics frequently portray aggressive males subduing submissive females, which may lead adolescents to incorporate this 'script' for sexual experience into their world view"

The study, conducted by researchers of the University of Pittsburgh, graded the sexual aggressiveness of lyrics, using songs by popular artists on the US Billboard chart, from the least to the most sexually degrading.

"Non-degrading" lyrics described sex in a non-specific way and as a mutually consensual act, while "degrading" lyrics described sexual acts as a purely physical, graphic and dominant act.

Researchers then surveyed over 711 high school students aged 15 to 16 concerning their music preferences and their sexual behaviour. They found that 31 percent of the surveyed students had had intercourse. The rate was 44.6 percent among those exposed to sexually degrading lyrics and only 20.6 percent among those who had been least exposed. The findings were affirmed by consensus figures putting the number of pregnant American teenage at 750,000, the highest amongst the so-called ‘developed countries’.

In the United States the study was hailed by experts as ringing an alarm bill for establishing parental and governmental censorship to sexualizing music.

"The need is for parents to be aware so that they can place limits and criticize and understand what their children are listening to," Steven Martino, a behavioural scientist in Pittsburgh with the Rand Corporation, told AFP.

Martino, the author of a study published in 2000 that also made the same association between music and sexual behaviour, said the findings were “a wakeup call”.

It must be however stressed the mode of action that parents should adopt must be based on patience and wisdom. A physical censure of what is being watched or listened would simply not work, as expressed by Helen Ward, president of the Kids First Parents Association of Canada, who asserts that technology means it is "physically impossible" for parents to monitor what their children listen to or watch.

Thus a more holistic approach based on knowledge-based faith that is commenced from an appropriate early age of the child may perhaps be the only workable solution…