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Benji.com: A Rich Resource for Families

Website is Applauded for Evolving into a Wellspring of Enriching Content for Families: Essays and Articles; Recommended Family-Safe Entertainment From All Sources; Compelling Books for Kids; Important Books for Parents

Valley Center, CA, March 15, 2005 – Joe Camp, creator of the famed canine superstar Benji, has made some hard business choices in order to keep his movies entertaining, positive, and family-safe. He and his wife Kathleen have also made hard family choices in order to provide the very best opportunity for their children to succeed in life. “And it’s working,” says Camp. “I want to spread the success as far and wide as possible.

Camp believes that too many parents today are letting the media raise their kids under the misguided conception that in our media-pervasive society there is little other choice. “But there are choices,” says Camp. “Good choices that have physiological and well as psychological benefit to growing children.”

In their book Abandoned in the Wasteland, authors Newton Minow and Craig Lamay ask the question: “If you came home and found a strange man teaching your kids to punch each other, to engage in promiscuous sex, or trying to sell them all kinds of products they don’t need, wouldn’t you kick him right out of the house? But you come in and the TV is on, and you don’t think twice about it.”

“Every day,” Camp says, “millions of Americans leave their children in the care of total strangers. By the time most American kids have reached the age of eighteen, they have watched a chilling 15,000 hours of television. When you toss in computer and video games the figure leaps to an alarming 41,000 hours, more than twice the number of hours they’ve spent in school!

“Our household has been totally off television for more than five years,” says Camp. “Our kids read continuously, have terrific vocabularies, all three are honor roll students, and no one wants to dress like Brittany Spears. By providing them with terrific books, and making careful selections of movies and mini-series to watch as a family, we expose them to good story-based, character-based entertainment instead of the vapid video-game mentality of so many of today’s ‘family’ movies.

“I wonder how many ten-to-fifteen-year-old kids in this country have seen the mini-series Roots?” Camp asks. “After our kids saw it the first time, they requested to see it again, and a third time.”

Joe and Kathleen have compiled lists of good, enriching, family-safe entertainment that their family has watched over the past five years. “Watched, and loved!” Camp is quick to point out.” And lists of compelling books that their kids have read. The kind of books that keeps them coming back for more reading experiences.

“There’s so much good stuff going on in the brain, physiologically, when a kid is reading, as opposed to when he or she is watching television, or playing a video or computer game,” Camp says. “Many studies of brain activity have proven what any thinking person should be able to deduce for himself. It’s like night and day.”

Camp has compressed years of reading and research into an article on Benji.com entitled The Risks of TV and he believes that any caring parent who reads the article and the underlying references will reduce or eliminate the amount of television their kids are watching immediately. “It’s not just content,” Camp says. “There is now a large body of research proving that the synapses in the brain are connecting differently when television is being watched, and those connections are negatively affecting the learning centers of the brain. This is especially true in kids from birth through age 13.

“But content and synapses aside,” says Camp, “one of the most important negatives about watching a great deal of television is what the kids are not doing while watching. Like playing in the sand, building castles, reading, following their dreams, creating, being constructive, building a foundation of doing, rather than passively watching.”

Benji.com also has a page of recommended reading for parents, and a special message to parents from Camp detailing his family experiences with the television off.  “People ask how we keep up with the news, says Camp, “but with computers, radios, and friends, we haven’t missed a thing of importance… and we don’t have to sit there listening to fifty talking heads telling us what they think we should think about whatever happened that day. Instead, we sit around the dinner table for a couple of hours and talk with the kids. An amazing concept, huh?” Camp grins.

Camp financed his latest Benji movie, Benji Off the Leash independently because Hollywood studios wanted to add inappropriate material. Not distributing through a studio cost him millions in promotional money and ultimate gross but he believes it’s been worth it. The outpouring and response to the film has been incredible. Parents are so thankful. It’s being used in schools and homes as a teaching tool. One New York critic said ‘If you want to raise humane, ethical kids, take them to see this movie.’

“Now, we’re doing with Benji.com what we did with the movie. Making it worthwhile. Making it an enriching, positive experience, with value for kids and families. And we’re already hearing the cheers from coast to coast. Hopefully we’ll start a trend. Life is not about making money. It’s about making a difference.”

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