They Say: Limit Kids Screen Time
What’s great about “advice” is that, in trying to be many things to many people, it often comes out sounding unintentionally dopey.
From About.com’s singleparents site (I guess kids in two-parent families can watch as much TV as they want to?) comes these tidbits:
“The American Academy of Pediatrics has some pretty strict guidelines for children’s television viewing.” What are these “strict” guidelines? Limiting the TV viewing of children younger than 2 years old to two hours per day, and not putting a TV in your kids’ bedrooms.
Do you think those are “some pretty stringent guidelines”? I admit that we let our son play his Nintendo DS in his room sometimes, but no TV in his room is not even an issue. I was allowed to get a TV in my room when I was old enough to pay for it myself (hello, Bar Mitzvah cash.)
Then we get to the advice on how to actually limit viewing hours.
- “Don’t use the TV as background noise. Only have it on if someone is sitting down watching a specific program.” Good advice in general, frankly.
- “If you have TiVo or a DVR, record a few of your child’s favorite shows and allow him or her to view them at specific times during the week. Once they’ve been watched, delete them from the recording device.” Clearly these people don’t have children, or if they do, they don’t have TiVo. In my experience, kids want to watch the same things over and over again. Not necessarily right away, but there are definitely repeat viewings of favorite shows. If we only watched everything once, why do so many folks buy DVDs?
- “Avoid using TV for winding down. Instead, read a book together or allow your child to listen to an audio book.” Again, reasonable advice.
- “Provide a TV viewing chart for your children, and teach them to plan out the shows they’d like to watch during the week.” This one seems weird to me. Isn’t this sending a message that television is so important it needs to be scheduled as an important part of your week? Admittedly, we’ve been spoiled by having TiVo for the kids’ entire lives, so planning is a non-issue (as are commercials.)
- “Finally, choose your child’s television programs carefully, and take the time to preview shows together. Talk about what you like about certain shows, and what gives you caution about the shows you do not care for.” I’ll take this a step further and say that you can and should watch shows with the little ones, especially once they get old enough to understand what the hell they are watching. For example, there’s an episode of “The Brady Bunch” where Mike tells Carol, “If I caught one of my sons playing with a doll house, I’d send him to a psychiatrist.” My mother was right there to point out the sexism of that line.
How important is the TV in your house? Any “strategies” for reducing screen time, or do you just shut the damn thing off?
image: Pegmurphy.com
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Everything within moderation!
Yvie
http://tangerineslullaby.eachday.com
As a SAHM, I have resorted to one hour of Sesame Street a day. I don’t know if that’s good for them, bad for them, or (most likely) irrelevant in the long run. The point is that it’s good for ME. I am alone with my toddler twins 13 hours a day, 5 days a week. Their naps are no longer a sure thing, and that one hour of quiet helps me a lot. I do the same thing as Tiffer – I let them watch Sesame Street when they wake up. It gives me an hour to wake up properly and drink a cup of coffee. I stay in the same room with them, and we even talk about what they’re watching. We still have 12 more hours of tv-free quality time after that.
Maeby,
Just responding to your original essay that somehow worked pancakes into the discussion. Which just for the record I love. So obviously there is common ground and I can now chill.
And Tiffer, I did forget about the SAHM. I apologize. The few times I’ve done the solo SAHD thing I’ve just gone to the beach/museum, but you can’t do that everyday, so I’m sure I would break down.
Treespeed.. you are forgetting about the kids that DON’T go to daycare. I’m a SAHM. I spend hours and hours every day playing one on one, taking my kid to the park, taking him to playdates, etc, but we can still manage to find 1 – 2 hrs a day where he ends up watching TV.
He’s allowed one show when he wakes up in the morning and one show when he gets up from his nap. We don’t have cable, so it has to be videos. Other than that, the TV is off all day until after the kid goes to bed.
Uh you just wrote an entire essay in your DEFENSE treespeed. Now that would be YOU being defensive, no?
I wasn’t slamming you babe, so chill out.
Those words were my opinion. My words didnt change your mind, and yours wont change mine. We’re two individuals with two different views. Just deal with it man, it’ll be ok. I promise =)
I was under the impression that the AAP’s recommendation was NO screen time for kids under 2.
We use a system where our daughter earns pennies for good behavior (or loses them for misbehavior) and saves them in a jar. We have a chart posted which states what she can earn with her pennies (tv time, trip to the Y, trip to children’s museum, etc.) and also how much several frequent infractions “cost”. A half hour tv show “costs” 3 pennies and we don’t allow her to watch more than an hour in any given day. By making her earn her tv time, we’re trying to send the message that watching a tv show is a special privilege, not just a given. It seems to work well in that she enjoys watching an occasional show, but she’s not completely fixated on tv, either. If she doesn’t have enough pennies, she doesn’t even ask me to turn on the tv and she just finds something to play with. (She’s 4, by the way.) As Maeby pointed out, if tv time is restricted too severely, you just wind up magnifying the importance of it in their heads. One unexpected benefit to this system has been that she’s also learned to “budget” her pennies. If she wants me to take her to the Y to go swimming on Friday afternoon (which costs 10 cents), she will won’t watch tv for a few days to “save up” enough pennies. She also feels very grown up counting them out and “paying” for her special big girl privilege.
A bit defensive their Maeby? If you feel like you need to catch up on TV that’s why they have Nick at Night, right?
But if my two year old is at daycare all day, picked up at 5:00, and in bed by 9:00 I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste 2 of the 4 hours we spend with her watching TV. Nobody said that parents who let their kids watch TV are “shitty parents”, but the research out points to it not being good for kids either:
A study from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that watching videos as a toddler may lead to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD, also called ADD in UK) in later life.
I think I’ll take my chances playing blocks now so someone isn’t trying to medicate her later.
I get annoyed about people making excuses for shitty parenting. There I said it, now you can lump me in with all of those annoying parents.
I just have friends who let their two year olds watch the movie Cars and then “have” to buy them all the toys. Which is fine if you want to raise good little consumers.
Our kids are going to have to spend most of their school years in front of screens why the rush to start it any earlier than necessary?
i wish my parents had made me watch more TV.
I was only allowed to watch 30 minutes of tv a week. it was all reading, playing outside and cleaning for me. totally sucked and when i think back on it i STILL think it SUCKS. I know nowadays it seems to be a contest on whos a better parent because they dont let their children watch any tv because they love them so much they do activities with them non stop but seriously come on.
people who let their kids watch a couple of hours of tv aren’t shittier parents than you are. There are some perfectly safe cartoons on noggin and nick (hell i get a crack out of some of the stuff on cartoon network when i watch it with my seven year old!).
Obviously if you ignore your kids all day and let them watch tv all day you kinda suck, but a couple of hours isn’t going to make your kid a dumbass.
Neither is letting them eat pancakes for lunch every once in awhile or GOD FORBID not pick up after themselves one night a week when they’re really tired.
sorry, i get annoyed sometimes…
I have to admit that I’m not sure why an audio book is better than TV. It’s still completely passive. Not that I think either one is the worst of all evil, just that reading a book together seems clearly superior to either.
In my experience, kids want to watch the same things over and over again.
IME that only holds true until about age 5 or 6.
Two hours of TV for a two year old a day? I’m not passing judgement but I don’t see how anybody has the time to waste on 2 hours of TV a night. We don’t even watch two hours of TV a week. Between dinner, walkies, block stacking, book reading and rereading, bath time, and toilet training, who has time for TV? I don’t think any child looks back and says, “I wish my parents had made me watch more TV.”