BlogHer - Breast is Best But What About the Boob? - Comments

I don't remember being

jLovesCoffee — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 12:18:25 -0500

I don't remember being critical of other folks' choices regarding television. I think what I said originally was that it seemed rather in vogue these days to dismiss reserach out of hand without looking at it or thinking about it critically, and basing such dismissals on what was convenient. I still think that's true for most people; we are beginning to make "gut instinct" a cultural value in America at the expense of science (across the board, not just about this issue). I also mentioned that despite what everyone was writing in about hearing criticism and feeling guilty about TV, I seem to be the lone person I know or know of (online and off) that isn't letting their kids watch TV. And no one sounds guilty - this was more along the lines of a validation forum.

Which is fine. Validation is a necessary part of parenting. I'm just playing a little devil's advocate, particularly since no one else was.

It also doesn't stop people

manicmom — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:09:36 -0500

It also doesn't stop people from being critical of other people and the decisions they have made in life. I don't dismiss ALL of the research, but I do alot of it. Mostly because ADD and ADHD are highly overdiagnosed and overmedicated. 13 hours of TV a day? Sure bad. 1/2 to hour a day while a parent does something else? Whatever.

Space and Time

You obviously have a

jLovesCoffee — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:06:05 -0500

You obviously have a different situation than I do, and have made the best possible decision for your kid(s) based on all the factors in your situation.

This doesn't change the fact that too many people obviously use the TV as a crutch, and do so less out of true need than convenience. Nor does it change what more and more studies are showing to be true: that more television for kids (particularly the under 2s) is bad. If you've taken a look at the data, assessed the risk in light of other mitigating circumstances, and decided that your toddlers benefit more from some Elmo time because it makes you sane, great. Don't feel guilty about it, that's your choice. That doesn't make it a great decision for everyone else, nor does it mean that each parent shouldn't go through their own decision making process.

Actually, no one ever said

jLovesCoffee — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 14:43:51 -0500

Actually, no one ever said the earth was flat. This is one of the biggest myths in the history of science. (My husband is a history professor and has a PhD in the history of science, and this one gets his goad up every time. It seems I've received the goad-getting-up from him. Alas.) And, yes, scientists prior to the seventeenth century did hold with some opinions that we now know to be untrue. This does not mean that all science across all time, from the middle ages to modern day is bunk.

This is exactly the sort of rhetoric within the culture of America that allows things like creationists to make arguments against teaching evolution in schools (a phenomenon that is particular to we Americans). Creationists will say, "Yeah, but scientists once told us the earth was one hundred million years old. Now they say six billion. See how those pesky scientists constantly change the story and are totally unreliable? That's why we can't trust what they say."

Doctors claimed smoking was healthy based on the evidence they had. When further studies were done, they immediately changed their recommendations based on the data at hand. That's how science works. It takes what it knows about something, forms a hypothesis, tests it, revises the hypothesis, tests that, and so on.

It is one thing to approach things critically - what types of studies have been done? on how many subjects, and across what ranges? have the results and conclusions been repeated/-able? how strong is the correlation of ADD (or whatever) and TV, and what are the other factors in the correlary data? - and quite another to dismiss all science and approach what IS known and HAS been found in a variety of studies with anecdotal, unproven, non-scientific conclusions based on little but "gut feel" and what would be more convenient.

please also note (from the

sweetney — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:15:18 -0500

please also note (from the article):

Q. How likely is the American Academy of Pediatrics to reverse its view that kids under two shouldn't watch TV?
A. The AAP recommendation was made in 1997 before there were any studies about kids two and under. The statement needs to be reevaluated, but with only a handful of studies out there, it won't happen any time soon.

which suggests perhaps the negative impact of TV was overstated by the AAP for children under 2.

And professionals also once said the earth was flat and that the sun orbited the earth. more recently, to dovetail into what you've said, so-called experts and scientists and doctors, prior to the 60s, also claimed smoking was not only not harmful but HEALTHY. so yeah, i take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt.

xo trace
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I can't get my 20 month old

Dana J. Tuszke — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 12:56:06 -0500

I can't get my 20 month old to watch TV for more than 5 minutes unless it's "The Backyardigans" and they are only on TV on Saturdays at our house (while I'm at work and Dawson is at Grandma's).

The child just doesn't care for it. I try to clean the house, and Clifford will be on and he just follows me from room to room making a mess as I try to tidy up. He's just an active boy I guess.

Maybe he's just not old enough to understand what's happening in that noisy, flashy box.

The American Pediatrics

jLovesCoffee — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 11:12:35 -0500

The American Pediatrics Association recommends no television for children under 2. I believe the AAP recommends no television for children under 3 (based on what a good friend who himself is developmental psychologist told me, though I couldn't find the reference). The studies that have been done - and I admit, they are not yet comprehensive, though that's not far away now - have been very consistent in the conclusion that (this is obviously a broad sum up) more tv is worse for kids, particularly at the youngest ages (under 2 or 3, depending on the study).

I'm not saying that children should forever be barred from all media. I don't think that's realistic, particularly once they get to preschool/kindergarten. The article and most studies are clear to distinguish between the over 2 and the under 2 television watchers. I think that's an important distinction.

I noted the article said, 'Professionals agree that TV is bad, but surveys show parents use it anyway.' The arguement 'since everyone is doing it, it must be okay' is not terribly compelling. It did not, say, work out very well for people who smoked after the studies in the 60s clearly showed that cigaretts led to lung cancer.

Rule of Thumb

FlatSam — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 10:11:27 -0500

We watched the movie and as we were walking out of the theater said "Well, he's not going to see that anytime soon." I use the same rule of thumb for video games. Only games rated E and I have to check them out first. I think the number 13 is going to be a magic number in our house....

Samantha
Flatsam

you might want to check out

sweetney — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:30:28 -0500

you might want to check out the article this post was largely based on here.

For those who are over two, there is a huge amount of research about the positive benefits of educational media, including predicting school readiness, building vocabulary, and other kinds of developmental skills. And those benefits extend into high school. Kids who watched "Sesame Street" as a preschooler have higher grade point averages when they get to high school.

and in the same way that you suggest these articles are perhaps slanted or biased in their perspective, i'd recommend not believing everything you read simply because it is presented as "scientific" -- science has its own biases and slants, and researchers are very often wrong or misguided or limited by the scope of their studies and thus present misleading results, as the article above suggests.

xo trace
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I think it's great that your

manicmom — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:40:06 -0500

I think it's great that your kids don't watch TV, but I refuse to feel guilty for mine watching a 1/2 a day while I wash dishes or do laundry or work. I work at home, I'm single bla. I'm not dismissing evidence, but I am using a tool I have to be able to do something other than look at my kid all day. I wager you have help when your spouse comes homes. Which is great. Some of us don't have that. So don't think we are lazy because we want to clean house or shower because it's convienent.

Space and Time

Well our daughter hasn't

Summerwolf — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 21:02:27 -0500

Well our daughter hasn't even seen some of the Disney movies! We only recently lifted the ban on things that showed minor violence, like Kim Possible (dumb but...), and that was mainly because Briar would still play violent games and I found it disturbing how often she was the "bad guy"!! O_O I figured that if she had the desire to play this sort of game anyway I wanted her to have the desire to be the hero out to save the helpless rather than the evil, mean villain. But even at that she knows I have to watch a show or two (or the movie) before I make a decision about whether it's appropriate for her to watch. For example she's never seen Mulan (one of my favourite Disney movies, truth be known) because I'm not ready to explain the concept of war to her (yes, she's leading a sheltered life) and I make a habit of ALWAYS explaining things to her so... that one will have to wait.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. ~Voltaire
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There seems to be a rash of

jLovesCoffee — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 20:17:49 -0500

There seems to be a rash of "tv is okay! because I need it to be!" articles, blogs, sentiments, etc. out there of late. I haven't seen ANY folks screaming or even whispering about the ills of television (nor do I know any parents who don't use television for their kids - not one via the internet, not one in real life).

That said, what research that's been done isn't mostly clear, it is crystal clear: the more television exposure at earlier ages, the worse off kids are - educationally, socially, gross motor developmentally, across the board.

Arguments like, "Well, I watched TV as a kid so it must be okay" drive me crazy. My mother smoked when she was pregnant with me - BECAUSE HER DOCTOR TOLD HER TO (to keep birth weights low). And, yes, I'm okay. So are lots of others whose mothers smoked during pregnancy. This does not mean that smoking during pregnancy is okay. These sorts of arguments - anecdotal, based on selective, subjective experience - are not reliable, and should not given the same weight as scientific data.

There is an anti-intellectual, anti-science culture in America (that, yes, starts at the top) that seems to think and proport that studies, data, statistics and science aren't nearly as important as gut instinct. I'll admit that science has flaws (as will most if not all scientists I've ever read or known), but it seems foolish to dismiss a ream of studies on a particular subject because their conclusions are inconvenient.

For the record, I am a stay at home mother of twin eighteen month old girls that do not watch television.

Ahhh, single parenthood......

manicmom — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:07:40 -0500

I had a judgemental friend tell me how bad TV was, bla bla bla. Then she came over to help me with some stuff and realized if I didn't put the baby in front of the TV at some point, I wouldn't shower.

I do think when he gets older I will view the PG-13 movies and then decide. Becasuse some of then scare me.

Space and Time

Hoo, boy, did you make the right call

Lisa Stone — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 17:21:50 -0500

Sam, that was my turning point movie! THAT one - with the last battle scene that truly grossed me out. We're all scifi geeks and I had been planning to let the then-eight-year-old see it. But then I read reviews that somberly invoked the D-word ("dark"), so I decided to check 'er out before the boys did. Ahem. Nevah evah gonna happen, I lectured them later.

Well, until they're 13 that is. Then I can hide behind them...

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Feeling your pain.

FlatSam — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 16:37:40 -0500

I think I have one of the only seven year olds that hasn't seen Revenge of the Sith. We have the same "viewed by a parent" rule in our house. On the upside at least my husband and I are getting to the movies more often.....

Samantha
Flatsam

Breast is Best But What About the Boob?

Mary Tsao — Tue, 30 May 2006 15:40:36 -0500

Contributing Editor Mary Tsao also blogs at Mom Writes.

"If you don't use TV as a babysitter, you don't have kids, or you are lying." -- Deborah Linebarger

Lauren Young from Business Week's Working Parents blog recently wrote a post titled Kids & TV: The Boob Tube Is Okay! in which she interviews Deborah Linebarger, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications in Philadelphia, and "one of a handful of researchers who track kids and their TV viewing habits."

Excerpts from the interview can be found in Lauren's post. Lauren sums up her feelings after the interview by writing:

"I felt like a better mom after our conversation. We need to stop parents from thinking that they are bad parents and they are damaging their child by letting them watch TV, Linebarger says. It's okay to use TV like other tools to meet a specific need."

Lauren's interview with Linebarger was in response to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study The Media Family: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers and Their Parents. Nobody from Nobody Here takes offense at an AP article written based on the study.

"So what you're saying is, before TV, these dinner-making supermommies were having high quality teaching-learning moments with their toddlers while cooking? They were teaching them to play the lute or recite "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" without ever once burning the risotto? The question here isn't whether there are times when you must attend to something other than your child(ren), because obviously there are. The question is how you choose to fill those times, particularly when your child is too young to read on their own or self-entertain. So how is having them sitting in a playpen staring at the wall or poking around the corner eating lint more developmentally advantageous than Elmo?"

Mothers certainly don't need to feel more guilt about yet one more parenting issue, and I think most of us would agree that watching TV is much like eating cookies; it's fine in moderation. As explained on the Toddler Blog:

"Toddlers don't need alot of TV. Some parents allow their children to watch TV and that is perfectly fine and normal. However, you should limit the amount of TV time that your toddler watches. You should also monitor the types of TV shows that your toddler watches."

Linebarger gives some indication as to which shows are better for younger viewers:

"Certain studies have shown that kids six to 30 months who watch "Teletubbies" have lower vocabulary scores and expressive language. But shows with simple story lines that look like actual story books, such as "Arthur" or "Clifford," are associated with higher vocabulary and better use of language."

Unfortunately, the issues of how much TV is too much TV and whether or not you can trust programming "for kids" don't disapear when your child gets older, as Jenn Satterwhite reminded us in her BlogHer post "N" Stands for Never and Not on My Watch. Liz Ditz from I Speak of Dreams recaps the issue behind Jenn's post and explains what actions moms can take to fight age-innapropriate TV programming in her post Age Compression, Again and Again: Promoting Tween Sexuality.

On a lighter note, Erin-erin-bo-berin from Family Circus is just happy that her youngest daughter, two-year old Rosie, didn't ruin the screen of their 65" rear-projection television when she sprayed it with Johnson's Detangler.

What about you? Do you (or did you) employ the electronic babysitter? What are your thoughts about kids and TV?

[Hat tip to Anne 2.0 for the link to the Working Parents post. Image credit: Animation World Network.]

Mary Tsao | Mom Writes