[debknechtel]

I have been watching it Donna...and my kids have too. I think it is okay and I keep watching because I am curious to see how they will do. There is a town council of 4 and at the end of each episode they award a gold star....worth 20,000 dollars to the member they think has contributed the most that week. They have a weekely challenge every week which determines there place in the society for the week. There are 4 teams(that they choose) They go from high class basically to low class....they get paid accordinly. The lowest cleans toilets etc, the next lowest are the cooks, the next are merchants and then high class. They can buy things with their salary in the stores. The kids are responsible for everything....last week they all voted on killing a chicken for supper...one of the 15 year old boys had worked on a farm so he knew how to do it...I was amazed that most of the kids thought this was the right thing to do and that they needed to eat meat not just veggies. So in this way it is kinda of like survivor. Any child can leave at any time just they can not come back. They have lost one 8 year old boy so far. I was sceptical about the whole process but after seeing the families interviewed and listening to the whole process of choosing children and all the prep it was the kids who wanted to do it not the parents. No one knew about the 20'000 gold stars till after the first one was given out. there is an adult host. The kids that were interviewed said there was no way their parents were not letting them go...they wanted to. It is definitly contoversial and they at one time were not going to air it but my kids love watching it. I believe the fear is that we are exploiting kids.

Hugs debbie