Watching TV 'is bad for children'?

[clawhammer.]

There’s a controversial new book out this week by Dr Aric Sigman called Remotely Controlled in which he argues that children under three should be banned from watching television.

This sounds extreme to me, but as the father of an almost three-year-old toddler I worry about the potential harm of too much television.

There was a well-publicised study last year about attention deficit disorder that first opened my eyes to this whole subject. Researchers at a children’s hospital in Seattle found that each hour spent in front of the TV increased a child’s chances of developing attention deficit disorder by 10%. Three hours television a day made children 30% more likely to have the disorder.

According to Sigman, the average six-year-old has already watched more than one full year’s worth of television, and by the age of 75 the average British person will have spent a staggering twelve years glued to their television screen.

Sigman also argues the link between excessive television and slowing down the body’s metabolic rate, stunting the development of children’s brains, being a major cause of depression, and increasing the likelihood of children developing attention deficit disorder.

I disagree with a lot of what Sigman says and question the basis of some of his evidence and statistics, but I do accept his main argument that too much television can be unhealthy, especially for young children.

Has anyone got any views on this subject? How much television should young children be allowed to watch?

[Lainey]

Some TV watching is ok. It's when kids are stuck in front of it or want to be stuck in front of it all the time that it's a problem. My daughter was diagnosed with a health problem at 6 months old and it initially slowed her development up slightly. I know for a fact that letting her watch some teletubbies and tweenies helped her to progress. Now she's at school she has quite a full day, she's also the youngest in her year and can get quite tired, and so at the end of the day, sometimes she just wants to chill out and watch some TV. I think you have to be selective with what they watch. I personally don't think the Simpsons is great for kids (I heard my nephew tell his brother to move his 'stinkin butt' and guessed that had come from the Simpsons !). However some programmes are quite educational. My daughter has started to enjoy wildlife programmes and I am more than happy for her to watch those on TV.

[threadbare]

i've vaguely thought in the past that i wouldn't bother having a telly for the first few years if i had kids. i just think it is a very passively consumed stimulus, there is so much else in the real world to explore and discover and investigate, and kids are so receptive and full of enthusiasm and curiosity, i think it would be a bit of a shame to squander the early years on TV watching. whether it is 'damaging' or not i couldn't say, but i don't think it could harm them not to watch it. i would hope that it would give them the confidence to develop their imaginations along their own unique lines. i wouldn't want them to feel abnormal or deprived either, so i would definitely let them watch it from, say school-age onwards if they wanted to. i think that shielding them too much from mainstream culture could make them a little precious or something, so i think it would be important for them to be exposed to that via TV to a certain extent as well, but within limits. i don't watch TV at all so it would be no hardship for me whatsoever to go without.

Before I had a child, I always said that I wouldn't let my kids watch TV until they were older. I now realise that it is nigh on impossilbe to get through the day without letting them watch a bit of TV as you can't be stimulating them yourself constantly all day. I did manage to refrain for the first year of my little one's life but he has more than made up for that in his 2nd year - ho hum! I do only let him watch Cbeebies though as I think it does teach children quite a lot. But he is not sat in front of it all day by any means - we do get out and about somewhere every day.

[Zayed]

Hmm yeah, chin-up, I can understand what you are saying. When I was 18, (I can’t believe I was so young, I wouldn’t let my kids be looked after by someone that age) I was a nanny as a summer job for two little boys. And my goodness, they were so boisterous (but I adored them really), I remember one day when one of them brought the hose pipe in from outside and started spraying the living room ha ha!!! I think I was probably too lenient on them apart from when we were out and suddenly the strict disciplinarian came out in me.


But anyway, the point being is that, yeah, to stimulate kids all day is hard work. Like you, we used to go out swimming or something every day, but just to recharge your own batteries, or do simple things like making their supper, it was a relief to plonk them in front of the box. What I did do though was put on movies for them rather than just let them watch what I perceived as ‘inane’ TV.

[Scottidog]

Sounds like an interesting book.. although I wonder if many parents would implement Dr Sigman's suggestion of banning TV to the under 3's in their households?


In an ideal world noone would possess a TV and children could fill their days with exploring and investigating the world around them. They could create their own games of make believe and spend endless Summer days playing among the fields and hedgerows, allowing their imaginations to run free. However, in the real world most families just couldn't adopt this way of life. When very young children want to explore and investigate their surroundings they require a massive amount of supervision which involves the parent having to be close by and ever vigilant. As most parents know, you just cannot be watching and stimulating your child every single second of the day. A child can be encouraged to play with his/her toys independently but, if they are anything like my young son, it will be just a matter of seconds before he starts badgering me to join him in his play. Of course, I'll happily read books with him, draw pictures and help him to construct a castle out of bricks but there are still times during the day when a parent has other things to do and is not able to abandon everything in their life to accompany the child on his never ending voyage of discovery. Most mum's when they aren't working, shopping or taking their children to playgroups have numerous daily chores to do around the home: Housework, washing, ironing, and cooking the dinner. I know from experience that it's not easy doing any of these things when you've got a child hanging round your legs and getting increasingly agitated because you're refusing to join them in their latest adventure of discovery. At times like this being able to switch the TV on to the children's channel has been a godsend for me! While the whingeing child happily retreats to the living room and quietly sits down to watch Postman Pat the mother finally gets a moment to soothe her frazzled nerves before completing the cooking of her little cherub's dinner safe in the knowledge that he isn't swinging from the curtains or trying to investigate the laws of electricity by putting his chubby little fingers into the light sockets.

Although I allow my son to watch TV during the morning while I'm doing various chores I always take him out in the afternoon. Often he will go to the Park, play on the slides and roundabouts, and fill his pockets with fallen conkers and acorns...

I suppose (as with most things in life) moderation is the key and it's all down to getting the right balance. Viewing TV to the extent where it excludes all other activities is obviously unwise and I imagine pretty detrimental to a developing young mind, but I really can't believe that an hour of TV here and there would cause too much long-term harm if the child also spends time involved with pursuits away from the box in the corner?? In some ways television can be very educational and instrumental in learning. I've found that alot of the pre-school programmes are quite educational.

Hmmm...perhaps it's not the amount of TV that's the problem, but the lack of any other stimulation other than being left infront of an electronic babysitter... ?



That was all a bit long-winded I know, but I hope it made some kind of sense. :embarass:

[Jessie Phillips]

Yeah, I'm with Scottidog on that one. I'm no expert, but I guess that the healthiness of TV depends on what else there is to do.

If the child has a safe environment to explore - that is, the rooms in your house are big enough for your child to run around in without getting bored or having an accident, and you know and trust all of your neighbours so it doesn't matter if your child drops in on any of them, and there are no nearby roads with heavy traffic that can run them over, or rivers they can drown in, then sure, TV probably won't do your child a lot of good.

However, maybe it's not so safe to let your child explore his natural environment. If it's a choice between letting your child watch TV and forcing him to stare at four blank walls, then I think that TV is probably the better option.

Isolating people from all stimulation will make them go mad. This was one of the problems of the earliest prisons for convicted offenders in Pennsylvania. The authorities also noticed that it didn't matter whether people were truly guilty or wrongly convicted, the prison still drove them mad either way. Your home might not be as bad to a child as an original Pennsylvania prison, but if you take your child's TV away, yet never allow them out, then it'll be getting like a prison. I think that sometimes, TV really can be the lesser evil.

[Sam_]

I haven't read the book, but, although I hate TV myself and never watch it, I don't think my kid would have survived the first 3 yrs of his life if I didn't let him watch telly lol. I would have been completely demented lol.

Nah, even though I hate watch it myself, at the most I maybe watch 2 hrs a week cos it just bores me, I think it can be good for young kids to watch TV. Obviously they need other stimulation and fresh air etc, but unless they're watching the wrong things I don't see how it can be bad for them. Most of the time they're learning from it, which is always good. Most programmes these day made for young kids are educational. Even the smallest kids can recognise different shapes, colours etc just from watching Telletubbies, so I think it's a very good thing. Too many people say that kids watching too much TV is bad, it's not, it just depends what they're watching. At that very young age, kids are so receptive, they take in everything, and I could only teach him so much in a day, the rest he gained from watching TV and it surprised me just how much he learned from watching programmes made for babies.

Even now that he's 8, he still learns a lot from TV. He doesn't watch as much now, cos I don't feel the need to stick on a video just to shut him up . But, sometimes he'll come out with things and I'll say 'how do you know that?' and it will come from some science/art programme and because it's more enjoyable for him, it seems to stick in his mind more than things he's learned in school.

He might just watch it for an hour or so some days, some of it is complete rubbish, which is fine for him coming home from school and unwinding, most of it though, teaches him something. I don't have any worries about him being a TV addict, but I'm gonna have to ban him from watching The Simpsons, I'm sick of him coming out with Simpsons quotes all the time, it does my head in