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A lot of stories are written by gals who look like quote unquote this! |
Posted on 05/08/2007 7:47:54 AM PDT by Sopater
Baby wants a bottle, and her TV.
Babies are glued to television sets these days, with 40 percent of 3-month- olds and 90 percent of 2-year-olds regularly watching TV, according to a University of Washington study released Monday.
These tiny viewers are further proof that baby TV is a booming business in 2007. Today, infants have their own 24-hour network, Brainy Baby and Baby Einstein DVDs, and a growing list of other programs made just for them. Many also have sets in their bedrooms.
"Most of these kids are watching what parents consider to be quote, unquote 'educational TV,' " said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, co-author of the study and associate professor at the UW. "There is not evidence at all that it is."
Scientists have themselves partly to blame, Christakis added, because they convinced parents that the first years are critical for a baby's brain, which triples in size by age 2. In fact, the most common reason parents offered researchers for their child's time before the tube was that they believed it was educational.
Researchers don't yet have a crystal clear picture of how bad, or good, television is for infants, though UW researchers say evidence suggests it's harmful.
With so much tube time, Christakis is also concerned babies lose precious time to play with blocks, read books with Mom and Dad and engage in other developmental play.
They don't have that much time to lose. Babies typically sleep 12 hours a day, which means many lose 10 to 20 percent of their waking hours to a glowing screen, Christakis said.
"We are kind of in the middle of a large, uncontrolled experiment on the next generation of children," Christakis said.
The experiment, however, deals with an evolving medium, BabyFirstTV countered. The year-old network may be on 24 hours a day, but its shows run only seven or eight minutes and without commercials. The shows are positive and are designed for babies and toddlers, and they engage parents, co--founder Sharon Rechter said.
"Let's make it a tool. Let's transform the viewing from a passive to an active experience," Rechter said Monday. "There is not a question of should they or shouldn't they (watch television). The fact ... is they are."
University of Washington researchers, however, found only 32 percent of parents always watched television with their children 2 and younger. BabyFirstTV's Rechter countered that 82 percent of her network's viewers watch with their babies.
Sometimes Mom and Dad don't even agree.
Ruby Grynberg is OK with her sons watching 30 minutes a day of "Blues Clues" or "Dora the Explorer," especially if the shows are free of commercials. Her husband, who is the primary caregiver, may turn on the tube for an hour.
"For me one of the biggest issues is commercials," Grynberg, 28, said.
When her sons -- ages 5, 3 and 2 months -- watch more than one show, they are crankier and more prone to meltdown when the screen goes dark, she added.
Advocates and critics agree on one thing: More research is needed on television's effect on young brains. Every month seems to bring another report on the effect of the boob tube on America's youth.
Last year, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that a third of children under 6 live in homes where TV is on most of the time, and 33 percent of those children have televisions in their bedrooms.
The most popular reason parents cited for letting junior put a set in his room was so everyone else could watch his or her own program, Kaiser said.
Last May, Atlanta-based Brainy Baby Co. cited a University of Texas study that reported a link between improved reading skills and a "steady diet of educational programming."
The company, which makes one of the more popular baby video series, stressed the importance of balancing appropriate educational tools with reading, physical activity and parenting.
University of Washington researchers disagree, saying the best available research indicates that all this television offers no benefits to babies and toddlers.
"While appropriate television viewing at the right age can be helpful for both children and parents, excessive viewing before age 3 has been shown to be associated with problems of attention control, aggressive behavior and poor cognitive development," Frederick Zimmerman, the UW study's lead author, said in a news release.
The UW study based its findings on a telephone survey in Minnesota and Washington of 1,000 parents of children 2 years old or younger.
In the meantime, the Federal Trade Commission is considering a complaint lodged against BabyFirstTV, Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby. It alleges false advertising -- that parents were misled that the videos benefit their children.
What about "Sesame Street"?
UW's Christakis argues that while the long-running PBS show, and similar programs, can help older children, these shows are not designed for babies.
But Christakis isn't telling parents to get rid of their televisions sets.
Parenting has never been harder, Christakis suggests, with more two-career families, longer commutes and fewer walls between the office and home.
If you need a 15-minute break, or a quick shower, don't feel too bad about turning on the set for a short time.
"If you are doing it, however, because (you) think it's good for your baby, then I tell parents they shouldn't do it," said Christakis, who is also a pediatrics researcher at Seattle Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center.
Janda Black doesn't put much stock in the benefits of baby programs for her son, Chase, who might get two short Little Einstein shows a week.
The programs aren't much help to Black either, as she juggles a public relations business, a husband in the active military and a 1-year-old.
"It really doesn't buy me that much time."
ADVICE ON KIDS AND TV
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television for children younger than 2, and only one to two hours a day of quality programming for older children.
The academy also suggests that parents not allow TV sets in children's rooms. It released a separate report Monday indicating one-fifth of the nation's children age 2 or younger have a TV in their rooms.
On a completely unrelated and off-topic note:
Most of these kids are watching what parents consider to be quote, unquote 'educational TV.
Why isn't it quote, body of text, unquote? Why do we always say quote,unquote, and then the body of text?
/crazy rant off.
I watched a little Art Linkletter on rainy days when Mom was ironing. ;)
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A lot of stories are written by gals who look like quote unquote this! |
Well, it may be anecdotal, but my kid watched LOTS of music videos when he was young. We found that when he was 9 months old, he'd sit in a chair and watch a music video (kids music video...Wee Sing,Sing-A-Longs, etc.) So needless to say, we took advantage of that fact. He grew up loving music, is a wonderful pianist, did very well in math, and is about to earn his college bachelor's degree at the age of 19. We didn't do TV per se...especially TV with commercials, but he did watch a lot of music videos and I believe it influenced him for the better. Was he drawn to the music videos because that was his aptitude, or was his aptitude developed because of the music videos? I don't have the answer to that, but I don't think TV/video viewing is all bad...I think some programs can be good.
I think videos like Baby Einstein are closer to child abuse than child development. Babies learn by touching, feeling, interacting and exploring, not by being little couch potatoes. Shame on the companies that foist this crap on parents and shame on the parents that buy into this line of BS. They must be either so vain as to imagine that their little precious ones are so precocious that they would actually understand the videos at 6 months old or so lazy that they use technology and money to try and offset bad parenting. Just my opinion, take it for what it’s worth.
My oldest son used to watch country music videos and learned to sing all the songs before he was two. Now that he’s 13, he refuses to sing, and want to be a heavy-metal drummer.
Come to think of it ... I believe there was one or two in the 70's .... OH yeah ... and the 80's ... um ... the 90's and now ...
... and the states these taxpayer 'research' millions go to are all over the map.
LOL, well mine never got into drums...he did take up guitars and he has a “menagerie” of guitars in his room, but he plays keyboard in a band, so that’s mostly what he practices. And his piano teacher, thank goodness, still insists on him learning classical, so it’s very pleasant to hear him practice.
In general, he'll get less TV time on nice weather days because we're playing outside, and more on bad weather days as there's only so long the toys hold interest. ;)
Well, for what its worth, my mother used to park me in front of “Donahue” every day for an hour while she watched it and ate lunch.
I think I turned out okay. I’ve only been committed to the mental ward twice, and the second time was a complete misunderstanding. The nightmares are almost entirely gone, too... although old men with white hair and glasses still give me the heebie-jeebies.
:)
This is slightly off topic, but what happened to cartoons? Cartoons used to be funny. Now children can’t watch a cartoon without learning how to spell the word homosexual, or without learning how to speak Spanish. What happened to Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry? I loved those shows when I was a kid.
Turn off the damned thing! It is a mind-control tool. It exists to convince us to buy things that we don’t need and to believe things that the producers want us to believe.
It missed the opportunity to do something useful in society a long time ago.
Wow...that’s a great idea, I didn’t know such a thing existed.
We homeschooled and used Abeka videos for a couple years. I used to chuckle to myself when I’d hear my kid talking back to the other kids in the class, or to the teacher.
Are the classes on BJU’s network set up the same way, where the student is viewing an actual class? Or are they more like college online classes would be, more of a lecture format?
I think videos like Baby Einstein are closer to child abuse than child development. Babies learn by touching, feeling, interacting and exploring, not by being little couch potatoes. Shame on the companies that foist this crap on parents and shame on the parents that buy into this line of BS.
Agreed. My son is fifteen months old, and he's never watched television. My wife and I read to him, play games with him, and take him outside - we would never park him in front of the idiot box even if some scam artist tried to foist her garbage off as "educational."
I was really angry to see the Baby Einstein founder as W's guest at the State of the Union - sure seemed like he was validating her crap.
Stupid stupid parents.
Here is a study that should scare the heck out of them. TV has been shown to cause autism.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/17/0435250&from=rss
They’re in a lecture format. There are some classes that are set up as live classes that interact with Christian schools and the kids can communicate with the teacher through an IRC system. My kids just watch the lectures, do the work, and we grade their work.
The best thing is that if they register with the Academy of Home Education through BJU, and attend 9th through 12th grade, they can obtain a Highschool diploma through BJU.
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