TV and our very young children

For Parents, grand parents and adults

There are some lovely products on the market to entertain our
babies and young children! How useful when we're trying to cook
dinner or supervise older kids' homework or music practice- or
stop them from waking the others!

But a new growth industry, TV programs for babies, is creating
some concern. In 1970 children on average began watching TV
at age 4 years, but today that seems to be more like 4 months!
We've discovered that 4 month olds see moving images and stop
crying. They also enjoy the colours and shapes and soothing
music. But the brain of the child under 2 is growing rapidly and
recent research in the US indicates that fast moving TV images,
rather than being harmless entertainers, actually affect the brain
so that by age 7 years, these children have a higher incidence of
attention deficit than those who saw no TV. There seems to be a
link with fast moving images getting children's brains trained, so
that later they are less able to concentrate on activities as needed.
And the more TV infants watch, the greater the effect.

It was also found that activities such as playing with blocks adds
to language development more than TV watching does. The
reason may have to do with the interaction between the adult and
the child compared with watching a screen. As we show our
children what blocks can do, we teach language skills,
demonstrate creativity, the force of gravity and engineering
concepts- sorting into shapes and sizes- all through play and
positive interaction. As children continue to experiment on their
own they practise the concepts they have just learnt.
It has also been noted that in recent years TV is usually no longer
a family activity as it was when there was only one TV in the
house - families had to learn to negotiate, parents provided
guidance and there was a shared experience. Of course we can
still do these things. It's a matter of choice!

Produced by Helen Vanderbom, Children's Work Coordinator
CRCA: childrens@crca.org.au