Wednesday, 17 December 2008
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Decreasing Your Child's TV Time
Guest post submitted by Kristenmomof3
TV is bad for kids, according to this Seattle Times article. Researchers at the Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, along with scores of other doctors and researchers also think the same. They found that for each hour of TV a child watches, there is an increase in the risk of attention deficit disorder (ADD).
Why? Possibly because TV gets kids accustomed to a level of stimulation that is much higher than they would experience in life. Combine this with the rapid changing of images characteristic of children's programming, and you've set kids up to be ill-suited to deal with school, homework, concentration, reading, and real life in general.In a recent study by the researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Stanford University researchers show that as TV viewing increases, academic performance decreases, especially in school-aged children.
Before formal schooling even begins, however, the damage of TV viewing is well underway. A 1996 study found that exposure to television causes delayed acquisition in toddlers. That's why this Connected Kids brochure on the influence of TV violence on American Academy of Pediatrics website advises that children under the age of two be kept away from TV altogether.
On average, people watch 4 hours of television and then spend another 4 plus hours with computers, games, video, iPods and cell phones. According to the Center for Screen-Time Awareness, Nielsen states that the average World of Warcraft gamer plays for 892 minutes per week! The website goes on to say that the company that owns Second Life (a virtual world) claims that its users spent over 1 million hours on line. These statistics hold true for children directed sites as well, including Webkinz and others.
TV turnoff week will be observed during April of each year. The challenge is to abstain from any TV viewing for an entire week.
Turnoff Weeks 2009: April 20th - 26th and September 20th - 26th
Mark your calendars! Are you up for the challenge?
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Comments (11)
Actually, we don't let our 14-month old watch any TV and we rarely watch any ourselves. I think that turning off your TV for a week is a great idea and more people should do it!
We don't even have a TV- problem solved. Well, we DO have a TV, but it is only used for watching movies. And we don't do that too terribly often. There ARE other things that are just as entertaining. Hmmmm, maybe that's how we got pregnant... TMI, sorry!
Not to say that I will never set my children down in front of a movie so I can have a break, but it won't happen often.
If you have to, for the older kids, set a certain amount of time that can be used on any sort of "media."
My parents gave me and my siblings one hour or one half hour each per day of internet and TV time.
It makes them learn how to use their given time wisely... and often it doesn't get used all the time because it's so limited.
we'll probably be up for the challenge because we don't even own a tv. who has time? we do watch shows online but after my daughter goes to sleep.
Interestingggg...
yes I watch tv and go online, but I wish I was doing something more productive with my time.
heck no I couldn't turn my TV off for a week. Well maybe if there weren't any shows I was watching.
But I do need to cut back on my daughter's TV time. I need to hide the remote though so she doesn't find it and ask to watch.
I dont know whether I been able to do this, since I dont know what the television listings are yet.
However the only think I mainly watch tv for is for the news and the odd tv programme, the rest of the time I used my tv for is to play video games.
My brother needs to stop watching so much tv...
We're not big on TV, but my son does have an Elmo's World addiction. He watches about 30 minutes almost every evening before his bath. Honestly, I think 30 minutes a day isn't bad, plus he's actually learned some things from Elmo's World. I know I was shocked the day he looked at me and said "arms up, arms down" moving his arms correspondingly at 17 months old. He learned that from Elmo! So I think there's a place for TV viewing, as long as the parent is monitoring what is being watched and for how long.
We do not allow our 16 month old daughter to watch TV. Once a week or so she gets about 30 seconds of Handy Manny (a kids cartoon) or Little Einsteins while I clip her nails. We typically never make it past the introductory song anyway. As soon as the nails are clipped, it gets shut off. We do not plan on letting her watch TV for quite awhile. We do not even turn it on until after she goes to bed.
My husband and I are just not big TV watchers and do not see a need to encourage our daughter to get hooked on TV.