A Child Watching TV Before Age 2 Has no Mental Benefit
Posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 and is filed under Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Most parents know by now that a child watching too much TV is probably not the best for him or her, but many parents will vouch that the television provides a babysitter, so they can complete simple tasks that most childless parents may take for granted, like bathing, for example.
So it’s no surprise that a study conducted by the Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School revealed (and confirmed the American Academy of Pediatrics’ [AAP] recommendation) that children who watched TV up to the age of two does not improve a child’s visual motor skills or language abilities.
“Contrary to marketing claims and some parents’ perception that television viewing is beneficial to children’s brain development, no evidence of such benefit was found,” says Marie Evans Schmidt, PhD, lead author of the study.
Data from 872 kids was analyzed. The study was the first of its kind to investigate the long-term associations of infant TV watching, from birth to two years old, with both language and motor skills at three years of age.
Many parents we interviewed were candid about the motives of their children watching TV. Holly Homer admits that her children–Ryan 8, Reid 5 and Rhett 3–watched television to give her a few minutes of peace and to shower. “I never have used the TV to teach things to my children. I never assumed it was something ‘good for them.’ I picked shows that I thought might be the most age appropriate and neutral in their effect, ” said Homer. “They have never watched more than an hour a day–usually much less. But while I am making dinner or trying to squeeze in a shower or a phone call, the TV works for a distraction.”
Esther Lee’s child, Owen, only watched television for about 15 minutes, once a month. But she feels that her child isn’t being educated enough because he doesn’t watch TV often. “We’re pretty lukewarm to the benefits of having your child watch TV. We think there are some shows that are educational like Sesame Street, but the majority are just a waste of time,” said Lee. “We’d prefer for him to be doing more creative things with his time and imagination.”
Even though the study showed that a child watching TV had no benefit, it also showed that TV viewing wasn’t harmful at this age. Though keep in mind, the study didn’t measure the content of programming, only the amount of time a child was exposed to the TV. Thus, follow-up studies need to be done.
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