I'm not an expert either, but my understanding from listening to the experts is exactly the opposite of yours. That toddlers are just soaking up information, including behaviors and how to communicate, and if there is ever a time to not sit them in front of TV, it is those years.
That being said, everything needs a balance and has its place. TV as an occasional helper won't be the end of the world. We didn't give our kids much TV, but when we did, it was Pingu.
> Even so-called educational videos do not benefit children under 2 because they are too young to be able to understand the images on the screen, the doctors’ group said.
So, we have been watching TV with my 20-month old daughter since she was around 9 months old. We watch kids shows and talk about it while we watch it together. And she knows exactly what is going on in the show and has for a long time. I'm sure she doesn't understand 100% of it, but it is obvious that she is picking up things.
* She knows the characters by name as soon as they are shown
* She talks about things she sees in the background
* Since last month she sometimes laughs when they do something that is meant to be funny
* She counts out loud to 10 with the characters on TV when they start counting
My feeling is that a constant TV in the background is a distraction for anyone, including babies. But having kids shows AND (here is the key part) watching them together and talking about it, re-enforcing the points of education, talking about the background, and asking questions about what is going on does in fact help with their development.
Consider that you are not an expert in child psychology.
Nor preschool educator.
Most of what we are conditioned to think about TV is we are moral failures to let our children watch it.
My understanding, for I am not an expert in those things either, is that toddlers and children learn slowly over years. And it's not TV that makes crappy adults.
My son is 21 months and we have never sat him down in front of a TV with the express purpose being education (so no Baby Einstein DVDs...what a joke) nor babysitting (passive viewing of a cartoon). He has been exposed to my iPad, my wife's iTouch and both of our phones, and Cablevision provides a 'Kids Music Channel' which plays a variety of kid-friendly music while cycling through a dozen or so static images including ballons, a rubber duck in water, and a car.
The only line in that article that I take issue with is the following:
Even so-called educational videos do not benefit children under 2 because they are too young to be able to understand the images on the screen, the doctors’ group said.
Maybe it's because we read to my son daily and have incorporated teaching him sign language from the time he was 4 months, but he most definitely can recognize the images on the screen and frequently both speaks and signs the correct image on the screen (balloon, duck, dog, car). If we had never done any of these activities with him then I highly doubt he would be able to recognize the images on the TV, and there might be a distinction between understanding and recognizing that I am not making, but he most definitely is displaying some sort of connection between the images on the TV and the books/drawings/in person experiences he has.
I think the key take away from this, or other studies of its kind, is that passive media should not be the influential experience that a child so young should be exposed to.
Yeah, good point. It annoys me any time this topic comes up (which is fairly often in my life, since I recently had kids) that I don't have a better set of references to back me up.
It was decades ago that I studied journalism in college, and I can't find links to a lot of what I learned, including the deleterious influence of television on human development (especially children).
Today, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends[1], "Television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age 2." We have pediatric doctors like Dr. Dimitri Christakis doing interesting research to help demonstrate the harms[2].
But I don't have much time to really follow it these days (aforementioned young kids and all...). At the same time, when I hear "show me the evidence! there's no proof TV is harmful to 2-year olds!" it really bugs me. (Not implying that's what you are saying, it's jut something I hear a lot.)
It's like one of those "there's no proof dogs have emotions!" things. It's obvious when you watch little kids with TV and heavy and mostly-unrestricted iPad/Nintendo. It's obvious that is not how you should do it (very much). I can't prove it, but I am certainly going to act on that conclusion with my own kids.
So, to answer your question, the reason I deny my 2-year-old TV and unsupervised iPad use is because I have observed it in him, and observed it in his peers, and it's just my best judgement that it is better off waiting until later.
Example 1: One morning I came downstairs and he was watching TV. He had turned it on by himself; it was an unusual morning in that my wife and I both slept in. He was just sitting there, in a kind of stupor, staring motionless at the TV with a kind of slack jawed empty expression (like my own, probably, when I drink beer and watch True Detective after everybody is in bed). I walked in and he didn't even respond. (The show was roughly the Japanese equivalent of Sesame Street.) I cleared my throat. No response. I grabbed the remote, and jokingly pointed it him from behind (the joke was for my wife, who had just walked in also). With the click! of the TV going off, my son immediately stood up, looked around, and busied himself with his Brio train set (which is what he usually did in the morning at that age (right around 2)). It appeared as if I had used the remote to turn him on.
Example 2: We experimented with letting him have limited access to Mom's iPhone, especially she started nursing our second child. For the usual reason -- it made him a lot easier to deal with while Mom did an unrelated but important task. He did these little 'educational' games where you build a train track and then the trains run on it, and you have to build around obstacles, etc. But we soon noticed that when we would take the iPhone back, he would have a very violent negative reaction -- really unlike him, we felt. All kids have tantrums and taking away a toy is always a risk of creating a situation, but we both felt that his behavior seemed unhealthy in some way; to exaggerate a little, it seemed like he was addicted to the little game. In that same vein, when we let him do it for as long as he liked, he would keep doing it over and over until he worked himself into a similar state. E.g., after an hour of doing it he would get so frustrated by the train track building not going well that he would have a similar tantrum of screaming and being very upset. He had this same kind of frustration with the real laws of the physical world, too -- like the wooden block too big for the hole he was trying to fit it in -- but those moments seemed much more short-lived than the iPhone-related ones. (And it wasn't just games -- interacting with the OS itself (dragging apps around, opening things to see what they did) seemed fascinating to him, but also seemed like a laser-pointer-and-kitten thing where he would get too worked up and couldn't stop himself.)
Example 3: My friends who disagree with me about this and let their 3-year olds watch TV hours every day have more annoying and obnoxious kids than those who don't. ;-) Bad impulse control, lower ability to accept and move on when things don't go their way, etc.
Also, I should clarify that we don't blanket ban TV and iPad. It's not an absolute, just a general rule.
With iPad especially, there's a whole lot of potential good stuff there, too. We let him use the iPad when we are supervising, or just sitting with him if he is in one of the painting or music apps. He's pretty awesome at Garage Band, and incredible using EasyBeats. He does a lot of painting in Paper and apps like that. And although he is not allowed to, he is a small and clever homo sapiens and therefore predictably manages to sneak a substantial amount of screen time, whenever somebody leaves an table or phone around with an easily-guessed password.
With TV, we watch NHK news around him -- he doesn't tune in to it. We had to stop watching the news channels with commercials though; as soon as one would come on, you could see him stop building his Duplo block tower and swivel his head to focus on the TV.
I do let him sit down and watch UFC fights with me, though -- that is the hypocrisy that proves the earnestness of my intentions.
Not the OP, but FYI there's a body of research in the wild that suggests ties between the late 20th century fall in IQ with the rise of TV in households.
The gist of the explanation is a combination of decreased parental interaction, owing to kids learning less words when their parents aren't talking to them and hardly learning any words at all when watching TV, and the constant interruptions owing to the TV's sound and animations, which distracts toddlers as they're playing (including when they're not actively watching, like when the TV is on while a parent is ironing or cooking), leading to a decreased ability to concentrate that might ultimately be tied to an uptick in attention deficit disorder.
I'm admittedly no specialist in the matter so I can't speak for how accurate and reliable the research is, but I thought the explanation convincing enough to rule out any TV being turned on in the household while our toddler is around.
The point of the study isn't that kids can't learn from the TV-- of course they can-- but that they'll be _better_ at learning when it's you talking to them, or reading them a book, or playing, or something that's more interactive.
We have a four year old who we've tried to limit watching TV, because you can see a noticeable difference in demeanor and attitude when the TV is on versus when playing by themselves or with us. Of course there's going to be some TV time, but for a kid under 2, I would tend to agree with the study, with the addition that even something like an iPad can be much more of a learning tool.
I've reread my posts, and don't see where I said children weren't learning. The science shows kids who watch TV speak later, period. Anecdotes (your kid learning some signs from a DVD, the earlier poster learning to read from TV) don't change that. Sorry, but they don't.
As for point 2, I don't disagree at all. Everything is a tradeoff, no parent can be perfect. Most kids turn out fine anyway. If you have to give your kids TV (my 3 year old gets about two hours a week, for instance) then do so and don't feel guilty. But don't try to justify it as educational; the science disagrees.
I knew about the AAP guidelines. But we decided to put on Daniel Tiger during mealtimes for my daughter from ten months old. It is a good distraction while we get some food into her.
Furthermore, children under two interact primarily with their parents. They do not really play with other kids at all, even if you take them to a playground. So if AAP says "young children learn best by interacting with people", they are talking about parents for under-twos.
At some points in the day, my wife and my daughter are just sick of looking at each other. So a little TV provides a welcome break. Yes, we try to limit it. But giving a blanket statement like "no TV under two" and making you feel bad when you cave in does not seem to help the situation.
Also, what happens when 4-year-old Jimmy is happily watching his two hours allowed of TV, and 14-month-old Bobby wants to watch too? Do you banish Bobby from the living room because it might hurt his brain?
One suspects the AAP recommendations are made knowing they will not be heeded. Like the eight glasses of water a day thing, it's one of those things adults tell each other "oh, you know they say..." If AAP were living on this planet with the rest of us, they would give more nuanced recommendations, just as USDA has had to do over the years with rec's on food.
The summary box at the very top of your link says "children learn better and more efficiently from play and interaction
in the “real,” three-dimensional (3-D) world with parents, caregivers, and peers" and that there is "no research showing that when children younger than 2 years old use these devices independently it enhances
their development" and implies that the only reason for having > 0 screentime is simply because there's so many screens you might as well give up.
Sounds pretty much the same as the AAP advice, just more cynical.
It looks from elsewhere in this thread you're taking this as a criticism of your parenting skills. Yes, it is easier just to turn the TV on to distract your kids for 15 minutes. When all is said and done we don't know what the effects are and even if they aren't great, there's millions of other kids doing the same thing so it'll probably be OK. But that doesn't mean that other people might find it in their interests to find a way to eliminate that tool for distraction. Maybe you can too - suppose the kids helped you with dinner? Even very young children can be taught to contribute with basic tasks.
I don't put a hard cap on screen time with my 2 year old, and he spends a ton of time playing by himself. Watching him do the pretend play thing is pretty fascinating, to be honest.
I'm assuming you don't have kids and only have limited interaction with kids in other social context. If we have friends over or something we try to put something on TV to keep the toddler occupied so we can have a discussion, but that's far from the norm. He spends most of the time each day playing with his toys, pretend playing, running around, etc. etc. - and again, I work from home and I'm not strict about limiting his TV time, he chooses to do other stuff the majority of the day.
It's an accepted recommendation by pediatricians to not expose kids under 2 years old to tv. The jury is still out there with tables and the such. They are way more addictive, but also more interactive.
My toddler is allowed about a half hour of cartoons on Youtube on the big TV per day. He's played with the iPad a few times in his life. Lots of books and Legos and physical toys in our house. Waiting for longitudinal studies to come out, not taking chances with the little brain.
The problem is that parents are using screen time as a nanny, and are training their kids to rely on them as such.
IMO, kids need to be taught self-control and have the ability to entertain themselves before screens are introduced.
Toddler age is definitely too early, I am in the opinion that as little as necessary until it starts to be required in school.
My 2nd grader knows that screens are useful and has seen limited use, wikipedia, video calls, but he is always accompanied by me. And he has no reliance on them.
I'm not intending insult your status as a prodigy. I'm just cautioning that you aren't interpreting the recommendation properly. One data point doesn't do much to disprove the existing studies that show a clear anticorrelation between speech development and screen time.
Basically, you're saying essentially that parents should ignore clear science and let their kids watch ("non-bullshit") TV because you know a kid who watched a lot of TV and is really smart. That's bad science, and frankly it's bad parenting.
This became a bit of a long spiel and is quite anecdotal, ymmv, but in the spirit of trying to help a fellow parent I thought I’d share my thoughts and experiences.
Our son is right around the same age. I was super addicted to tv as a kid and I really don’t want our kids anywhere near one. My wife specializes in early childhood education so I usually (have to) run my crazy child rearing ideas before her before it gets ratified.
In any case we don’t have a cable subscription. We have Netflix/amzn prime but we make it a point not to turn the tv on around the kids. We only really watch it once the kids are down. I personally feel that when you’re watching tv your brain is shut off, you’re getting the dopamine hit (which I think is similar to the Facebook/insta likes etc). And I have some intuitive feeling that this probably isn’t the best for childhood development.
We have a small place, so our living room is full of kid stuff. Educational toys, books and all that. We got our 2 yo into reading and he has his kiddo sized bookshelf so when he wants to read he chooses his books and brings them to us and we read.
When we read we don’t just read the text, but we really try to examine the pictures as much as we can, I try to make it as interactive for him as possible, I learned that one from the wife.
He has a ton of toys my wife has chosen based on her experience, we tend to avoid too many electronic toys with lots of overstimulating lights and sounds (besides those get annoying really quick).
One thing that has really helped is music. We have tons of kid sized indian and western musical instruments as well, part of it is because music wasn’t emphasized at home (only math and science, that is a whole other discussion, but a very damaging attitude to have in the home i think as well). We also play music, but shut off the screens. So we will cast YouTube or Spotify to our tv but shut off the screen. It’s a little scary to see how quickly their eyes glaze over once the visuals come on.
I really think songs and singing along is such a great way to build up vocabulary skills in kids, as well as helping them develop their musical sensibilities.
We also live in Southern California, the favorable weather makes it very easy to go to the beach any chance we get, or I’ll just take him outdoors and let him explore and play.
This is all probably a long way of saying what another commenter was getting at. Have a lot of other entertaining activities at home so that the tv becomes insignificant or ideally just a worse option from the kiddos POV than more wholesome activities.
Also I always love recommending The Beginning of Life on Netflix, it emphasizes Reggio Emilia, and has an eye opening take on child development that engineers or technically oriented people may not have at first grasp.
I don’t think screen time is beneficial, but it really depends on level of selection, supervision and coordination when it comes to whether it’s harmful IMHO.
I’ve seen my toddler completely zone out on a show and on the same day, transfer both scientific and socio-emotional concepts from the show to the real world. It really is mind-blowing as a parent.
Now being more aware (and having an M.Ed) I can easily design everyday learning activities based on the handful of shows I’ve (since) vetted.
At the same time, I have great empathy for parents who don’t have the privilege of being present due to work, multiple kids mental health, or otherwise. And I don’t want to judge those parents, understanding that I could be in a similar position with a few different outcomes.
Some statistics and information from the 2008 book Parenting, Inc.:
"A nationally representative study from the 1990s found that only 17 percent of children under one were watching television and fewer than half of children between the ages of one and two watched. In a 2006 study of 1,009 parents, 40 percent of babies were watching TV or DVDs/videos by three months; the average baby started watching videos at six months and regular television at ten months." Source: Parenting, Inc., p. 142
"Knowing that television viewing by children under the age of three is associated with reduced reading scores on tests that measure reading recognition, reading comprehension, and memory makes these statistics all the more alarming. Surveys show that children six and under spend three times more time in front of a TV, computer, or video game each day than they do reading." (p. 143)
Today [2008], a Baby Einstein DVD retails for $19.99, and those aimed at children under two account for $1 billion in sales." (p. 120)
"In a 2004 survey by the nonprofit Zero to Three, 82 percent of parents were comfortable or very comfortable with children under two watching television, and 89 percent were satisfied with the quality of available videos. By the age of twenty-four months, 90 percent of babies are regularly watching TV, DVDs, and videos for an average of an hour and a half per day. When asked in a nationwide study why they exposed their babies to media under the age of two, despite explicit warnings against it from the medical profession, parents said 'education.'" (p. 126)
"A 2005 study of 1,000 children published in Archives of Pediatrics found that children who watch TV before age three have lower cognitive scores at age seven." (p. 131)
"For each additional hour of daily TV viewing before age three, the chances of having attentional problems increased 10 percent; a child who watched two hours a day on average was 20 percent more likely to have attention problems." (p. 131)
"Studies show that high levels of television viewing before age three are associated with subsequent bullying, and impaired reading and mathematical proficiency. A 2006 study in Pediatrics found that the more television children under five watch, the less likely they are to engage in creative play." (p. 130)
"According to Dimitri Christakis, the director of the Child Health Institute at the University of Washington, overstimulation is damaging to the developing mind. The brain's orienting reflex, first described by Ivan Pavlov (of the famous dog), is triggered when a baby hears a strange sight or sound: He can't help but focus. Rapidly changing colors, sounds, and motions force a baby's brain to stay at attention. Each time her gaze might wander, action rivets her mind back to the screen. [...] Parents say, 'My child can't stop looking at it! She Loves it!' Christakis said. 'Well, true, she can't stop looking at it, but that does not mean she loves it.'"
"A 2007 study by Christakis, Meltzoff, and their colleague Frederick Zimmerman found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understand an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them. Not surprisingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no television viewing before age two-- a fact of which only 6 percent of parents are aware, even though the warning was established in 1999." (p. 132)
"While certain types of media exposure can be beneficial to three- and four-year-olds--the best example is Sesame Street, which has been shown in reliable studies to help some preschoolers with learning skills--there is no evidence that exposure before that age is a good idea and plenty to suggest that it's harmful. In fact, watching even Sesame Street before age two is associated with delayed language..." (p. 133)
"In an experiment conducted by a Georgetown University researcher, parents were explicitly told that videos were to be shown to their babies in order to determine whether or not babies could learn from TV and videos. Many of the parents then told the researcher that they had already read research supporter the videos' educational value. But they couldn't possibly have done so--no such research exists. Parents have clearly absorbed the advertising and marketing messages implying educational value and assumed there was proof behind the promises. One thirty-three-year-old stay-at-home mom told me she tried to get her son to watch educational television, but he just didn't seem interested, and she would try out Baby Einstein DVDs instead if they weren't so expensive. 'I Personally think it helps them with speech, learning to say words, and the alphabet,' she said." (p. 134)
"Patricia Kuhl, who studies language acquisition at the University of Washington, conducted an experiment in which a native Mandarin speaker played with a group of babies for an hour a day while speaking Chinese. Through laboratory testing, she found that babies were subsequently able to recognize Mandarin sounds. But not one of the three control groups-- a set of babies who saw the Chinese speaker play with babies on a video, another group who listened to an audio recording of the Chinese woman playing, and a third group who had no exposure to the Chinese speaker-- were able to distinguish Mandarin sounds from English ones. It turns out that in order for a baby to learn a foreign language, a foreign-language-speaking human being needs to be present." (p. 122)
"In one study of two-and-a-half-year-olds, it took six viewings of a video to accomplish what a single live demonstration could do with simple-step operations like removing a mitten or playing with a puppet, a gap that has come to be known as the video deficit. Research has also suggested that while children can learn new words from watching TV, videos are less effective than live experiences, particularly for viewers under two." (p. 131)
"A 2005 study in American Behavioral Scientist concluded, 'Although the experimental studies are still few, they are remarkably consistent in indicating a video deficit for children 24 months and younger. Although there is some learning indicated by some of the studies, the learning is dramatically less than found for equivalent live displays.'" (p. 124)
That being said, everything needs a balance and has its place. TV as an occasional helper won't be the end of the world. We didn't give our kids much TV, but when we did, it was Pingu.
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