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TV can be a good parent
The American Academy of Pediatrics says television watching is harmful to babies and toddlers. This mama says: I don't think so.
By Ariel Gore
[08/16/99]

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By Mona Gable
[08/14/99]

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[08/14/99]

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In the middle of the night, the smell, feel and touch of a small child soothes a restless mother.
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[08/13/99]

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[08/12/99]

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The American Academy of Pediatrics has been widely criticized -- most recently by the New York Times' Gina Kolata, among others -- for declaring on Aug. 3 that pediatricians should tell parents to keep children under 2 from watching TV.

My response to the recommendation is that it's right-on. Why would any parent want to subject a 2-year-old to TV? Certainly nothing good will come of the experience, and a growing literature indicates that the impact will be negative.

Also TV can be a good parent The American Academy of Pediatrics says television watching is harmful to babies and toddlers. This mama says: I don't think so.

There may be many reasons parents allow their children to watch TV: because they need a break from child-care duties, they need some time for themselves or because the child wants to. These are understandable reasons, perhaps even arguments against the AAP's recommendations. Yet they don't challenge the substance of the report's conclusions. They just underline the lack of healthy alternatives our society offers overburdened parents.

The AAP has been criticized for failing to ground its findings in science, but that strikes me as a narrow view of science. It is true that no study reveals damage to toddlers who watch TV, but according to Dr. Miriam Bar-on, one of the statement's authors, that's chiefly because no studies have addressed the question. Even so, many other studies show the problems that befall older children who watch TV: an increased chance of obesity, poor school performance and aggressive behavior (in response to exposure to violence). Furthermore, the AAP based its conclusion on investigations into the brain development of children under 2. Recent research, the AAP said, "shows that babies and toddlers have a critical need for direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitive skills."

Which is precisely what TV doesn't do. Children under 2 are just beginning to walk, talk and think. For better and for worse, the world is open to them: smells, colors, textures all stimulate them. What they see is often near their fingers, since they can't yet focus fully on the surrounding panorama. Put them in front of a TV, however, and they do none of the things their genes are prodding them to do. They're not walking, they're sitting. They're not talking, they're silent. And many studies of TV's impact on children's brains suggest that they're not thinking, either. Maybe they're mesmerized by the flashing of the cathode-ray tube or the rat-a-tat array of images; their brains revert to producing languid alpha waves, as the TV images change before the children have a chance to process them. In commercials, images change every two or three seconds; a toddler's brain takes at least twice that long to process a single image. Younger children don't even know that what they're watching isn't "reality"; it's just another form of reality to them.

Next page | Have we given up on finding satisfaction -- for our children and ourselves -- in the unmediated world?