Assignment Task: Read the following article, and can you please answer the questions?
1. Was there anything you read that might be concerning?
2. Or that you had questions about?
If you want a child who can spend long hours entertaining herself (which will afford you many breaks and make you the envy of all your friends with children); and if you want your child to have the best chance of reaching her educational potential, be able to listen and retain what she learns and need to spend less time doing homework, studying for tests, stressing about school in general; then don't turn on the TV for the first 2 to 3 years. It is much easier than you imagine. But once you begin using TV, it's harder. -Janet Lansbury
How much screen time should your Toddler or Preschooler have? Are you ready? In my opinion, no daily time on an ongoing basis.
Of course, screens are a terrific babysitter. If you have a new baby in the family, or you're trying to get some essential alone time with each of your kids, or if you're easing an airplane trip, it's my vote that screen time is totally worth the risk. But if you routinely use TV so you can get stuff done, you're actually shaping your child's brain so that he will be LESS able to entertain himself over time.
In my opinion, it's better to find a babysitter or a preschool program for a few hours a day. Risking your child's brain development is too high a price to pay for keeping him busy.
The American Academy of Pediatrics is more open on this. Drawing from the research, they suggest that children under age 2 not watch any TV and that kids over age 2 be limited to an hour or at most two, daily, of quality programming.
That comes out to about ten hours per week. And yet, toddlers and preschoolers in the US watch an average of 32 hours of TV every week.
Why is this a problem?
TV changes brain development. Dr Dimitri Christakis will blow you away with this talk about brain development and the effects of TV.
TV can sabotage kids as they learn to read, and keep them from becoming good students. Why? Click here.
Toddlers and preschoolers have other, very important developmental work to do. This is a huge amount of time spent on TV that should be spend on the things that are better for their brains - blocks, art, running around, engaging with other people. These activities teach kids self-regulation, and are the foundation for the next stages of learning.
TV is addictive and this sets up a habit for life. Every child growing up today will have enough trouble with screen addiction without us setting their brain up to make it more likely.
If you're protesting this as an extreme position, consider it from another perspective. Would you let your child engage in any other daily activity likely to negatively impact the way his brain is developing, or damage her body?
TV and computer games stimulate your child's brain to develop differently, and many of those changes seem to have to do with shortening attention spans, reducing impulse control, and heightening aggression. There's increasing evidence that the more TV kids watch the more likely they are to have ADD and ADHD symptoms.
Young children's brains were designed to develop optimally by engaging with the physical world, and with the imagination--being told stories, for instance--rather than to be fed passive viewing that bypasses the need for imagination.
Toddlers and preschoolers may not look busy, but they have important developmental work to do. Fantasy play, building with blocks, artwork, social interaction with their peers and siblings, cooking with their parents, climbing, swinging, looking at books. These activities help your child's brain develop as it's designed to, giving her people skills and problem solving creativity, as well as the foundation for math and reasoning.
Regardless of how carefully you monitor your young child's screen time, you're changing brain development. You're also setting up addiction. By the time they're eight, if not well before, you won't know what they're seeing on TV, because they'll be changing the channel when you're out of the room. Better not to get a habit started, and meanwhile leave time for the child to develop the habit of reading.