Fred Rogers Quotes

Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object.

I would let my kids watch this stuff way before I'd let them watch something like 'Full House' that I think would make them stupid.

Parents can plant magic in a child's mind through certain words spoken with some thrilling quality of voice, some uplift of the heart and spirit.

I really learned the power of the tube on Sesame Street and how it can influence a very young mind.

I don't think a lot of people realize the influence TV has on our kids. Kids take a lot of their cues from it in their dress and their conduct.

The question for me was, could TV actually teach? I knew it could, because I knew 3-year-olds who sang beer commercials!

I read a great deal as a child. A lot of children go through a phase of reading in a literally voracious way. It is their primary imaginative activity. Maybe that's an experience which is not so common any more with the presence of television in every home.

Every now and then, we hear parents commenting on the fearful things which motion pictures may do to the minds of children. They seem to think that a little child is full of sweetness and of light. We had the same notion until we had a chance to listen intently to the prattle of a three-year-old.

I've always felt that kids are a lot smarter than we've given them credit for, but we've never given them a chance to figure things out as they're watching television.

I feel like covering my children's eyes when they watch television. It's better that they spend their time doing something constructive.

My daughter thinks that only her mum is on the television. Every time she sees the screen anywhere she's like mummy! Because we don't let her watch the TV.

Television deprives children of their imaginations.

It’s not whether children learn from television, it’s what children learn from television... because everything that children see on television is teaching them something.

The average teen today spends about 35 hours a week in front of a screen of some kind: iPod, movie, TV, video. And a lot of it is good, but a lot of it's not. And so I think you've got that five hours a day of media coming into your kid's head that's creating a lot of havoc out there.

Today, children are watching more and more television, and are bombarded over and over with images and content that have the potential to dramatically influence their behavior.

One of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child is to help them find their talents.

I've conducted an experiment on my kids. Instead of denying them access to media, I've encouraged it. They read comic books, play Nintendo and watch way too much TV.

I have a 6-year-old daughter, and we never look through magazines. But when we're on a plane, that's the one time we have screen-time and magazine-time sometimes. And I do not open a magazine with her without saying: 'Now remind me, are these real pictures?'

Television contracts the imagination and radio expands it.

When I was a boy, there were three influences on children. The school, the family, and the church. Now there is a fourth---television.

We have to ask people who produce things [entertainment] to consider their consequence—especially with children.

Let’s get real. It does make a difference what children see on television.

No American parent should be forced to compete with popular culture to raise his children.

Children have more need of models than of critics.

The children were singing beer commercials. If they could learn from beer commercials why can't they learn 1,2, 3 and more.