PEARL 43

Television Watching

Every new media-use study brings on another bout of parental anxiety.

The headlines are alarming: “Average child watches five hours of
television a day, study says,” or “Experts claim television dominant
influence in average American kids’ lives.” We read the reports, cast a
wary eye toward our kids imitating potted plants in front of the tube, and
shake our heads in dismay. Television watching — What programs? How
much time? When? — is the source of many parent-child tiffs. We are
forever devising strategies to curtail our kids’ television habits.
Many parents allow their young children hours in front of the TV,
believing that at least preventing or discouraging the watching of sex and
violence is adequate. However, we are more concerned about the fact that
young children watch TV than what they watch. We are especially
concerned about the amount of TV children watch before age six. When a
child is between ages three and six, his or her brain is developing rapidly.
These years, before the child learns to balance a bike, are important
“learn-by-doing” years.
We strongly believe that hours of TV watching in toddlerhood and
early childhood negatively impacts children’s brain development and
their later ability to focus on tasks. TV watchers often lack the ability to
follow through on tasks in school. Their fragmentation on task
completion may lead to a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD). This is a misnomer and simply confuses the situation,
for many of these children have no problem at all attending. In fact, a
teacher may provide a videotape to “calm down the class.” Indeed, these