PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma's complaint about too much sex and too much violence on TV has once again raised the debate around the effect of TV on human behaviour.

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma's complaint about too much sex and too much violence on TV has once again raised the debate around the effect of TV on human behaviour.

This is more so about those who are still in the process of developing their personalities.

This is a never-ending debate, with some experts arguing that there is no connection between TV violence and how young people behave.

Having said so, we cannot deny that the way violence is depicted on TV relates to the level of violence in a given society.

It is also common cause that children are to a large extend influenced by institutions like the media, family, schools and how society in general deals with violence and sexuality.

What then becomes the issue is the gratuitous use of violence and sex for commercial gain by TV programmes writers and producers.

The challenge that modern societies are facing is how to deal with the fact that parents have allowed TV to do surrogate parenting for them.

This therefore calls on us to play a role in moulding our children's behaviour.

We must use institutions like the Broadcast Complaints Commission of South Africa to hold broadcasters accountable in this regard.

But as parents we must not defer out responsibility to TV programmes.

We must be there to interpret those programmes for our children - whether the content is local or international.