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This story is from January 18, 2007

Shin Chan has parents worried

Avijit Ghosh / TNN / Jan 18, 2007, 00:59 IST

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Kids adore and even imitate him. But he makes many parents wary. And a clinical psychologist feels you must not watch him without parental guidance.

NEW DELHI: Kids adore, discuss and even imitate him. But he makes many parents wary. And a clinical psychologist feels you must not watch him without parental guidance.
The object of everyone's attention is Shin Chan, the naughty five-year-old protagonist of a popular animation series
being shown in India.
Shin Chan often makes life miserable for his homemaker mother. He disturbs her when she tries to take an afternoon nap. He makes fun of her weight consciousness.

He calls her "bacche churane wali moti budhiya" though she neither old nor fat. In one episode, when his mother asks for a chocochip, Shin Chan refuses. "Itni kanjoosi tumne kahan se sikhi," his mother asks. The kid replies, "Tumhi se, mom."
Such mischievous antics have made Shin Chan almost a cult figure among kids. For them, he is a fantasy fulfiller. The number of kids of age group 4-14 who saw Shin Chan in December '06 was 32,91,000. The show had a reach of 36% making it the most watched programme on the Hungama channel.

Bhavini Sinha, 7, watches the same episode again and again. "She even apes some of his antics. She pronounces the word, Ohhhh, the way Shin Chan does," says mother Lalita.
And Pakhi's grandmother, Sarbani Roy, says the five-year-old child often coerces her mother into accepting her demands. "Otherwise she says, I will call you names the way Shin Chan does," says Sarbani.
And that's what worries parents such as Pratibha Mehrotra. "Shin Chan seems to be setting the wrong example. I know of parents who have stopped their kids from watching the programme," she says.
They are not the only ones complaining. Over the past few months, clinical psychologist Rajat Mitra has seen a group of children in the age group of three to five years watch the programme and observed their behaviour.
"Shin Chan shows you can be smarter than adults and even fool them. His naughtiness is exciting and gives kids a sense of high by which they can become equal to adults," he says.
Mitra says that conventional parenting is process-oriented. "In real life, if you want something, you ask for it and learn to negotiate. But Shin Chan shows them how to bypass the process," he says.
The psychologist has instructed the kids not to watch the programme unless accompanied by an adult. "An adult must explain them what is right, and what's not. The programme stops their ability to discriminate between right and wrong," he says.
But Aparna Bhosle, vice-president, programming and production, Hungama TV, offers a different view.
"In every story his parents reprimand Shin Chan whenever he misbehaves and his naughtiness always gets him into trouble," she says.
The senior executive adds: "We interact with a lot of children. The children of today are far more confident, intelligent and surely have a mind of their own. They clearly know what they want and do not blindly ape what they are exposed to."

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