Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action against TV, Movie & Video Game Violence is a first-rate expose of the overwhelming contemporary scientific evidence about the destructive effects of media violence on our children. We may want to deny it, but Grossman and DeGaetano bear witness. But they also provide us with tools -- real life and workable tools! -- to change all the violent media diets that have been changing our kids for the past two generations.
And no one is more qualified than Grossman to lay out those effects. His On Killing and On Combat are meticulously researched classics. So when I ordered this book I was expecting much of the same.
But I was blown away! Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill provides indisputable, scientifically demonstrable facts that media violence is psychologically, emotionally and even physiologically doing damage to our children. Every parent must read this book. Because it's an eye-opening examination of the latest brain science, social science and developmental studies that most of us ignore and therefore remain clueless about.
What most impressed me about Grossman and DeGaetano, though, is their grasp of what real parents need to and can do to begin change for our children. They don't stop with lamenting the state of things as they are, but issue particular ways we really can "stop teaching our kids to kill". These very sensible, practical strategies alone make this book a must-have for parents and educators and counselors.
This book will also have adult readers questioning their own media habits and diets. It did me, anyway. While I don't have children, there are children I love who are close to my heart. And it's this modeling behavior that has me most concerned and driven to change. Thanks to this book.
If you have children, work with them, or have any influence over them -- which is pretty much everyone! -- I cannot stress this too strongly: Our kids deserve us to read and practice this book! We must stop teaching our kids to kill.
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I received this book free, from the Blogging for Books program, in exchange for my honest review.