Some people believe that increasing violence in the media is the cause of increasing violence in our society especially among children Others believe that children s peer groups and parental role models are a much more influence on children s behavior Wri

Proponents that the increasing rate violence in society, particularily among children, have argued that this is because of the increasing rate of violence in the media. While another group of people claim that peer groups and parental role models have the most impactful influence on children's behaviors. It may seem that there may be a correlation between how much violence being portrayed in the media and how much violence exists, this doesn't mean that the media causes more violence. For this reason and for several other reasons which I will adress shortly, I firmly believe that children's peer groups and parental role models have the most powerful impact on a childs behavior.

First, in a recently published article in the journal called Psychology, data suggests that if a child's friend decides to do drugs, or partake in some sort of risky behavior, the child is ten times more likely to copy his friends behavior than if he didn't have the friend in the first place. While by itself this information does not disprove that the media is not the cause for increase crime, it does show that a child's behavior can be directly caused by a peer.

Second, a child's role model has a much more influential impact on a child's behavior than the media. For instance, during the 80's in the city of Baltimore, crime rates were actually decreasing, but the media's coverage of violence was increasing. This clearly demonstrates that the rate of crime is not influenced by the media.

Thirdly, parental influence can have a huge impact of how a child will act. During the crime rate recession of the 80's was happening, the notorious gang leader, named Ray Stran, became the most powerful gang member of that time period. Ray became a part of this infamously violent crime family because his father was previously in charge. As quoted in in biography, "the single most influential person in Ray's life was his father, and he wanted to be exactly like him when he grew up." So in light of the media showing less violence on the T.V., Ray only wanted to behave like his violent father.

In a final analysis, while there are seemingly two sides to the argument of what influences children's behavior most, it is clear that the peer network and who the child's role model is, is the biggest determining factor to the child's behavior.