Are children copying what they see on TV?

NOIDA: What leads a seven or eight year old to assault another child sexually? Psychologists say the phenomenon, which has become more common these days, is the result of lack of supervision and early exposure to media.
Neharishi Srivastava, a psychologist with Gautam Buddha University, said children should be kept under strict supervision as academic commitments restrict them to mostly indoors these days. “In such a situation, the first things that kids pick up are from the TV and mobile phone. Then, they want to implement them in their lives,” she added.
Srivastava said she had come across a lot of cases where kids have been found involved in sexual crimes. “In one such case, a 10-year-old boy sexually assaulted a 5-year-old by luring her with a chocolate. When I asked the boy why he did so, he said he had just recreated a scene from a movie,” she said.
Dr Jitendra Nagpal, a senior psychologist at Moolchand Medicity, said the psychological trauma that the girl suffered in the latest case should be handled with care. “It’s difficult to make any conjecture about what led to the latest situation. But mostly, it is due to things that children pick up from certain peer groups and later experiment with them. Police and support groups should evaluate the situation with some sensitivity,” he said.
According to Sanjay Singh, a child expert who runs Break The Silence foundation against child abuse, the notion that such crimes are restricted to a particular section of the society is wrong. He also blamed the easy access to porn for such crimes. “Such crimes are taking place even in elite schools. The government should come up with specific programmes to tackle this,” Singh added.
Former state police chief Prakash Singh said, “A few days back, I read somewhere that India is one of the biggest uploader of child pornography.”