TV for Kids - Is It Always Bad?
Television rots the brain. Don't use the TV as a babysitter. Children under 2 shouldn't be exposed to TV. Watching TV encourages obesity in kids.
Two new studies suggest we should hide the remote. One finds conversation between adults and children decreases when the TV is on, even as background noise. The other discovered TV food ads lead to a 45% increase in snacking while watching cartoons.
Too much TV is a concern for parents. But is TV always bad for children?
My toddler watches a limited amount of TV. In our case, he only began repeating the alphabet back to us after he started watching Wheel of Fortune.
Now we mute the TV and he calls out the letters as Vanna White makes them magically appear. He sings the alphabet back to me, just as I did to him before he was even born. I don't credit a game show for teaching my son the alphabet, of course, but watching that half hour of people calling out letters sparked something in his mind to know that mommy wasn't just saying the alphabet to hear herself talk.
Regardless of what studies say regarding watching television and the habits we develop, are there times when watching TV is actually good for your family? Vote in the poll:
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The question isn’t really whether kids can learn from TV. Of course they can, but the question should really be would the average household be better off without a TV, and the answer is yes. Most of us would read more, exercise more, eat less and socialize more if we did not have TVs in our houses, and that goes for toddlers all the way up to grandparents.
You definitely have to find a balance if you’re going allow the kids to have any TV time. Hopefully, that balance shifts way toward the side of being outdoors or creative play indoors. We can easily get caught up in the “it’s educational so it’s okay if the kids watch TV for the next 3 hours” mindset.
Apryl Duncan
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My kids learned their ABCs from Sesame Street and I still have a soft spot for that show. (Ernie!!) But I think particularly as kids get older – tweens and teens – watching TV *with* them gives parents an easy way to broach difficult topics, whether it’s mean girls/bullies, substance abuse or sex. Letting kids of any age have free access to TV, without monitoring what they’re watching and, um, redirecting the message
seems a recipe for disaster.
We have a television in our home, but we live in such a remote area that we do not receive signals, so we just use it to watch dvd’s and videos. That said, my son is allowed to watch Sesame Street and other educational programming at his grandparents’ house, once a week. There’s just so much going on at our house that we don’t really need the t.v. on a regular basis. I hope to continue to raise my son in a relatively television-free environment and show him that there are lots of better things that he can do with his time like playing outside, feeding our chickens, and reading!
We happily lost our TV signal with the digital conversion. But we do use DVD and view shows online. TV can be an active experience if you use it right.
My preschooler and toddler spend 45 minutes jumping and dancing every time the Wiggles are on — perfect for a rainy day. My kids have definitely learned from TV — reading from superwhy; all about animals from wildlife shows. Yes they read real books, but a multimedia experience has been proven to increase understanding.
So in moderation and with appropriate content media is great!
I love your idea of muting the TV so he can call out the letters! It’s that kind of creative approach, I think, that turns TV time into family time!
My son was a Sesame Street fanatic when he was little. There were a few other programs he enjoyed, such as Bill Nye the Science Guy. He loved programs he could learn something from. TV was never used as a “babysitter.” We watched the programs together and had nice conversations about the content. What we saw and talked about often led to trips to the library.