Too much telly can be bad for your kids, as it can lead to obesity through lack of physical activity.
Do you want couch potatoes or active athletes?
Posted on 10/12/2009 5:12:48 AM PDT by myknowledge
Experts are warning child care centres to drastically limit the amount of time children spend watching television or ban TV altogether.
Research by the Royal Melbourne Children's Hospital suggests children under the age of two should not watch any TV at all.
The researchers have now written guidelines for the Federal Government as part of the Get Up and Grow guidelines to reduce childhood obesity. They are designed specifically for child care centres but also provide some advice for parents.
Statistics show that four-month-old infants watch on average 44 minutes of TV each day and children under the age of four with pay TV at home spend at least three hours a day in front of the screen.
A senior lecturer in Child Development at the University of South Australia, Glenn Cuppitt, says the new guidelines are a measure of desperation to encourage children to be active and to interact with others.
"[Children] need to be physically active and if parents and if child care centres are simply placing them in front of a television and leaving them there, then it cuts down the amount of time that they are actually involved in other healthy activities," he said.
The brief also calls for TV to be limited to one hour a day for children aged between two and five.
Lee Burton, an independent media researcher and commentator, is in favour of a complete ban of TV for toddlers and child care centres.
"At the moment there are no rules and regulations. Each child care centre has its own particular set," he said.
"Many don't have a television at all. Some have a television and may seek advice from the parents or permission from the parents to show, for example, Play School or some other education program.
"Some child care centres unfortunately have a television running all the time and that is very damaging to a young child's growth, particularly the under twos and threes.
"I think this is aimed at helping people to understand the effects of television watching on very young children and to advise them this is not a good thing."
To ban or not to ban?
Tina Garland, who has an 18-month-old son, has not banned her child from watching television.
"I do let him watch TV, even though I do it with big pangs of guilt because I know you are not supposed to let little ones watch TV," she said.
"He's got a habit, too, of standing right in front of the screen as well and it is hard to keep him at a good distance away from it.
"I think it does make parents feel guilty when they do have it on, especially for a long period of time.
"He loves it. If there is a cartoon on TV that I know he likes and he is getting excited and he's watching it and he is pointing to things and saying things, I think 'oh, you know, maybe it is not such a bad thing'."
Lachlan Comyns says he tries to limit the amount of television his son watches.
"I don't like my son watching any TV. He is 18 months and sometimes we put on children's videos for him but when he is around, I don't have the TV on at all," he said.
"My wife sometimes puts the TV on when she's busy and he kind of goes into a bit like a zombie or something."
The Get Up and Grow report is expected to be officially released next week by Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon.
Too much telly can be bad for your kids, as it can lead to obesity through lack of physical activity.
Do you want couch potatoes or active athletes?
They have been saying this for 30 years.
Are the Aussies just now getting the memo?
My son loved music videos when he was small. The titles we used to buy were called Wee Sing and they were entertaining. He watched them for hours (probably during the age span of 1-3.) He danced around the living room, jumped up and down, did more physical activity than he would have if he was sitting and coloring or playing with toys. He’s grown (21), isn’t and has never been obese, is good at most sports, never watches TV now (mainly because he’s too busy with work and school), and is a wonderful musician who plays several instruments (I credit some of his musical ability...because it’s not genetic, LOL...to his exposure to music at a young age.)
I never felt guilty for letting him watch a few hours of music videos or educational TV shows during the day. I was a SOH mom and interacted with him the other 12 or 14 hours during the day.
DUH..
I thopught this was about what it does to their minds until I read down to the obesity bit...
However one parent does say of his 18 month old “he kind of goes into a bit like a zombie or something.”
When I suggested that this was probbably the cause of the increase in autism in the past 20 years, I received a most interesting reply from fellow Freeper catnipman:
“Three years ago, a Cornell statistician, Gregg Easterbrook, published a paper showing the rates of autism diagnosis increased during long periods of wet weather. His theory as to why this was the case was based on the increased amount of television watching during rainy weather.
“Naturally the “vaccines cause autism” bunch hooted him down. They want to blame an exogenous factor, such as vaccines, rather than have to face the possibility that their own child-rearing technique, namely using the TV as a baby sitter, might be implicated. Unfortunately for the vaccine crowd, there’s not a single credible demographic study that implicates vaccines, and several very big studies have been done in several different countries.
“To some degree, the TV theory makes quite a bit of sense. Infant brains are still intensely wiring up their brand new neurons and most of that wiring is predicated on early inputs. Motion and sound are two of the biggest inputs, as infants track what is going on around them and their new brain is furiously trying to makes sense of it all.
“Now if you set that infant down alone in front of a big screen TV with surround sound, with continuously flashing images that make no sense whatsoever and continuously blaring sound that makes no sense whatsoever, what do you think is happening inside that baby’s tabula rasa as it furiously finishes knitting its unfinished neurons, recording the nature of its discovered world.
“I think Easterbrook’s theory merits further investigation. It would be fairly easy to design studies that compare rates of autism amongst various cultures with varying amounts of infant TV watching. Other studies could compile statistics based directly on questionnaires.
“Autism is a terrible thing, and it is indeed increasing. All reasonable avenues need to be pursued, regardless of politics. Just think. If it turns out TV is implicated, then prevention can be achieved simply by better parenting.
Quoted without permission because here on FR already.
We use videos such as Wee Sing Bible songs & other videos as a reward.
A comment on the daycare angle - we’re always amazed when interacting with “daycare kids” and how our 2 & 4 yr olds are about on par with 5 & 6 yr olds, linguistically, academically, and socially. My wife is in the noblest profession, though - stay at home mom & homeschool teacher.
My kids that get maybe 2 hours of toob a week are still zombies during those two hours and of course throw a fit if their time is cut short.
It’s an evil device, I swear.
Kid TV is a great way to teach kids to watch TV. If allowed to use them, it also has the added benefit to train them in effective TV-remote usage.
24 hour Nick and Disney. DVDs on demand.
They go right along with the uptick in Autism.
30 years, more like 50 years.
I would like to meet this two year old that sits still enough to even watch TV.
There should be two starkly defined study groups to compare: TV and no-TV.
Perhaps > 15 hours per week vs < 2 hours per week would be a better analysis.
TV in child care ‘damaging toddlers’.
Not true:
There are daycare centers in NYC, Berkley etc that show 24 hour loops of President Obama’ speeches and the tots sing songs of praise to him while maintaining disciplined behavior that would make the Nazi’s proud!!!!
sarc//
There’s a reason my old man always was tellin us “Go outside!!!”
My almost year old infant loves watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. She even plays better than Wolf Blitzer.
Why the change?
Legislation that offered all sorts of extra money and incentives for children who are “autistic”.
If you want more of something you subsidize it.
Want more unwed mothers? Offer welfare benefits.
Want more unemployed? Offer more generous and longer lasting unemployment benefits.
Want more illegal aliens? Offer them free medical care, schooling and “a path” to citizenship.
Want more children to be diagnosed as autistic? Offer benefits for the care and treatment of autistic children.
It really doesn't have to be anything more complex than that.
Another is Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Postman discusses how TV contributes (and its predecessor technologies of telegraph, telephone, radio contributed to a lesser degree) to many "modern" societal ills. Getting information even from TV documentaries and news programs is fraught with peril for the way society works.
30 yrs. Right
I recall a study about then that claimed kids programs that flashed pics faster than the child could comprehend what the pictue was would destroy the child’s ability to concentrate.
And that the ability was lost forever.
Methinks my calm, happy, obedient 1.5-year-old is so because TV is limited to about 20 minutes of Baby Einstein per day (if any TV at all).
Hours of incomprehensible (children have little understanding of much that’s on TV), frantic (wild action & editing, cutting to in-your-face commercials every few minutes), zombifying imagery can’t be good for anyone esp. kids.
That’s an excellent book-I would have mentioned it if I’d remembered it, so I’m glad you brought it up.
My mom noticed that even though she only permitted half an hour of tv a day, I’d stare at the blank screen for hours afterward. So she took away all tv and kept it off until we started hitting 10 or so, and then limited it strictly.
I’ve got a six month old. People keep saying “Oh, the Baby Einstein DVDs are great”. I think they’re nuts. I want her to play, not watch stuff. She stares at the tv when my husband and I are watching stuff, a little, so I’ll probably try to limit that exposure in the next few months. I just don’t see the need.
I had an "expert" tell me that my children would be "underdeveloped verbally" if they didn't watch enough TV. My reply was "That's why Mom and Dad (who didn't have TV) just grunt at each other and point, I guess."
"Experts" are idiots.
We're in the exact same position as you, and have had much the same experience. My oldest has a larger vocabulary than many people I work with.
A bit ago, we were working on something in the shop and he said that he was "Dubious" about it working. I just about dropped what I was holding. Good word (in the proper context), for pre-K.
I laugh when someone asks me, of my 4 yr old (and of my 2 yr old, for that matter), “did she just say XYZ, and used it correctly?”
This happens pretty often.
I told my 4 yr old that she was causing me to sin, being prideful of her. She understood the compliment.
My youngest has a good vocab, for two. We're still at the two-word phrase (red truck, round wheels) stage. He's already learned a word that my oldest didn't have at two though... "Mine!" :-) Guess that comes with having an older brother.
Boys’ vocab is slower, as a rule. I have girls, and the two year old will tell you whole stories (often repeating what the older one just told us).
The Lone Ranger sometimes shows up where he works though. Or, big robots, or MONSTERS! I think that he works in a much more exciting environment than I do.
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