How tv affect your child

Television and Children | Johns Hopkins Medicine

As children grow and develop, they can be easily influenced by what they see and hear, especially on television. While television programs can be educational, many children watch too much television.

TV programs can show children violent behavior that you do not want them to imitate, or that can cause fear. TV may also show children poor eating habits through commercials for high-calorie, low-nutrient foods. Too much TV watching can also take away time from reading, studying, learning activities, play, and exercise. Television can also show alcohol and drug use, smoking, and sexual behavior before a child is emotionally ready to understand these issues and practice good decision-making.

Parents can help decrease the harmful effects of television watching by screening the type of programming and limiting the amount of time a child watches television. The following are suggestions for helping set good television viewing habits:

Choose programs for your child to watch. Always plan what your child will see on TV. Do not turn on the TV randomly. Give choices between 2 programs you think are appropriate for your child.
Limit TV viewing to 1 or 2 hours a day for children older than 2 years of age. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children younger than 2 years should not watch TV at all.
Turn to educational shows from the local Public Broadcasting Station (PBS), or from programming such as the Discovery Channel, Learning Channel, or History Channel.
Watch TV with your child. Talk about what happened on the show. Talk about what was good or bad about the program. Talk about the difference between reality and make-believe.
Turn the TV off if the program is something you believe your child should not see.
Do not assume all cartoons are acceptable and appropriate. Many cartoons contain violence.
Many daytime programs (such as soap operas and talk shows) are not appropriate for children.
Be a good example to your child by not watching too much television yourself. Be involved in other activities, especially reading. Read to your child.
Encourage play and exercise for your child. Plan other fun activities for your child, so he or she has choices instead of TV.
Limit using TV as a reward for good behavior. Try a trip to the park, a festival, playground, or a visit to a relative's or friend's house instead.
Do not allow TV watching during mealtimes.

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How Media Use Can Affect Kids (for Parents)

Most kids are plugged into devices like TVs, game consoles, tablets, and smartphones well before they can even ride a bike.

Technology is part of life. And parents can make technology a healthy part of childhood by teaching smart media use. Preschoolers can get help learning the alphabet on public television, gradeschoolers can play educational apps and games, and teens can do research online.

But media use can also have some downsides:

The Obesity Link

Kids who spend too much time using media are more likely to be overweight. Health experts have long linked too much screen time to excess weight. When they're staring at screens, kids are inactive and tend to snack. They're also see lots of ads that encourage them to eat unhealthy foods like potato chips and drink empty-calorie soft drinks that often become favorite snack foods.

Studies show that decreasing the amount of TV kids watched led to less weight gain and lower body mass index (BMI). Replacing video game time with outdoor game time is another good way to help kids maintain a healthy weight.

Watching Risky Behaviors

Characters on TV and in video games often show risky behaviors — like drinking alcohol, using drugs, and smoking cigarettes — as cool, fun, and exciting. When these things seem acceptable, kids and teens might be tempted to try them. That might lead to substance abuse problems. Media can also expose kids to high-risk sexual practices, and studies show that teens who watch lots of sexual content are more likely to start sexual activity at a young age.

Seeing Violence

The average American child will see 200,000 violent acts on TV by age 18. Many of these are done by the "good guys," whom kids are taught to admire. In fact, often the hero wins by fighting with or killing the “bad guys." This can confuse kids as they try to understand the difference between right and wrong.

Kids who view violence onscreen are more likely to show aggressive behavior, and to fear that the world is scary and that something bad will happen to them.

Young kids are easily frightened by violent images. Because they don’t yet understand what is real and what is make believe, simply telling them that violence isn’t real won't help. Behavior problems, nightmares, and trouble sleeping may happen after kids watch violence on screen.

Older kids can be scared by violent images too. Talking with kids this age will help them, so it's important to comfort them and explain what they see to help ease fears. But it's even better to not let your kids view shows or play games that could scare them.

Sleep, Mental Health, and Other Problems

Kids who use media in their bedrooms often don’t get enough sleep at night. Media use also can expose kids to cyberbullying, which has been linked to depression and suicide.

And media use can distract kids from important tasks, interfere with homework time, and hurt school performance. It can limit quality family time and make kids feel lonely or isolated.

Too Many Commercials

Young kids don't understand that commercials are for selling a product, and sometimes can’t tell the difference between the show and the ad. Even older kids may need to be reminded of the purpose of advertising. Video games are especially full of pop-up ads with pressure to buy.

Explain that ads are designed to make people want things they probably don't need and believe the products will somehow make them happier. Teach kids to be smart consumers. Ask them questions like: "What do you like about that?" or "Do you think it's really as good as it looks in that ad?"

Try to limit kids' exposure to ads. You can:

Have them watch public TV stations, which rarely show ads featuring products.
Record shows so you can fast forward through the commercials.
Mute the TV during ads to ask your child questions about the show.
Stream their favorite programs, or buy or rent DVDs.

What Else Should I Know?

Parents can and should keep tabs on their kids' media use:

Set limits to ensure that kids don't spend too much time in front of a screen.
Monitor how and what kids see on their screens, and encourage positive, meaningful, and educational media use.

These online resources also can help:

the AAP's family media plan tool lets parents create a media plan for their family
Common Sense Media has information about age and content appropriateness of video games and other media

No TV: why watching TV is still bad for children

But what's wrong with watching a little TV? Most will say: "Nothing!" This is probably why 40% of babies watch TV at three months, and by the age of two, 90% of children spend one to two hours a day watching TV programs and video games. In 1996, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy statement on children's television viewing, referred to in the media as the "no TV until two years" policy.

But does television harm young children? It hurts, and how!

No positive effects are known from children watching television programs. This also applies to educational programs for preschoolers. The human brain is "programmed" to learn from living people, at least at an early age. The presence or absence of direct communication directly determines whether the baby will master certain skills or not.
Watching TV slows down the development of oral speech. Toddlers who watched the Baby Einstein educational video programs had less vocabulary than their peers who did not watch these programs. The results of the study went so against the promises of the manufacturer, Disney, that she offered to return the money to the parents. Two studies have shown that watching Sesame Street has a negative effect on the expressive language of children under two years of age (in older age, this program, on the contrary, contributes to the development of the child in certain respects, for example, in terms of school readiness).
Children do not communicate when the TV is on. Children don't see anything around, they don't hear what you say to them. They do not explore the world, do not play, do not move - and these are the most important activities for the development of the child.

Children don't communicate… That's the point! After all, TV programs are not created for the child - they are for parents so that they can take a break from the child. They make a one-year-old or two-year-old baby sit silent and still for half an hour, instead of, say, emptying drawers while you try to clean up the house. If the program is called "educational," you don't feel as guilty, that's the difference.

I think the reasons for the popularity of this kind of products lie in the following.

1. Parents need a breather , and we have forgotten how to turn to our own parents, neighbors, relatives and friends for much-needed help.

2. Parents have a lot of things to do. And how everything is simplified when the child is chained to the screen! But the burden of everyday worries will become much easier if you reconcile expectations with the new realities of life. When a child is next to you, he comes first, that's all. It is enough to remember this, and the struggle of priorities will no longer tear you apart. Of course, we will redo a somewhat smaller pile of cases. Of course, any business will require five times more time. But, honestly, is it really that terrible?

A drop of TV after two years

Children over the age of two can already learn something thanks to interactive TV programs. Choose programs for children whose characters:

address the child directly;
give him the opportunity to answer;
say the names of different objects.

Educational programs that meet these requirements, such as Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer, can really expand a child's vocabulary, develop their communication skills and prepare them for school. The Common Sense Media website (commonsensemedia.org) provides ratings and reviews to help parents.

What is special about being two years old? As scientists have found, between 18 and 30 months, the child begins to perceive information in a new way and gains the ability to focus on the content of the TV show. Again and again being in front of a television screen, children learn to extract information from television programs.

Vocabulary

In one study, children who watched interactive programs showed more vocabulary than their control peers (watching non-interactive programs resulted in fewer words being known).

Communication skills

Tricky question: what do you think is better for a three-year-old child to watch - frankly "adult" animated series "King of the Hill" or "Wonder Beasts", children's stories about a team of rescue animals produced by Nickelodeon? A recent study found that parents can reduce a preschooler's aggressiveness by allowing them to watch socializing children's shows (showing how to be involved, help others, or resolve disagreements without resorting to force) instead of adult shows that show aggression.

School readiness

In a study among low- and middle-income families, children who watched educational television shows (such as Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, and 3-2-1 Contact) improved after three years passed tests for academic achievement than children from the control group.

Why is it harmful to watch TV for more than two hours a day

So, children can learn through TV programs. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics warns that a child two years of age or older should not spend more than one, maximum two hours a day in front of a television — or any other — screen. Why?

1. Watching TV leads to obesity. Children who watch TV eat more and move less. This is such a passive pastime that the metabolic rate drops even more than during sedentary work or study. More than two hours of TV programs or videos a day are hazardous to health .

2. Children refuse to read. In families where the TV is almost always on (and this is 30% of families with small children), children at three or four years old spend 25% less time reading, and at five or six years old - almost 40% less time than at home, where it is not accepted.

3. Constantly running TV distracts children from playing. When the TV is on in the “background”, the children do not seem to pay attention to it, only occasionally glancing at the screen. But between the ages of one and three years, children growing up in such conditions spend less time playing, concentrate less on play, randomly grab one toy after another, and their play itself turns out to be primitive.

4. Stability of attention suffers. Scientists have found that if children watch TV for more than two hours a day, it is more difficult for them to concentrate.

5. Sleep suffers. Children who spend more than two hours watching TV every day are much more likely than their peers to have sleep problems. Leaving the TV on at night is a very bad habit. Nearly 30% of two- and three-year-olds have a TV set in their nursery, and their parents claim that TV helps children sleep. But research suggests otherwise: watching TV leads your child to go to bed later, fall asleep longer, and sleep less. In the long run, lack of sleep undermines the health of the child, not to mention the fact that the next day the baby will be grumpy and naughty.

How to watch TV: together, according to your explanations

Scientists say that it is possible to mitigate the negative impact of television and make the most of its developmental opportunities. Watch TV with your children and discuss the programme. Melissa Morgenlander, Educational Consultant for Children's Media and Information Technology, provides guidance on coviewingconnection.com. The first thing to do, she advises, is to choose a children's show that you like and sit in front of the TV screen in an embrace with the baby. Then proceed as follows.

TV character asks viewers questions? Answer them! No matter how stupid you feel about it, it is very important that you "talk" to TV characters when they "address" you. Support the game! Count out loud when you are offered to count, repeat the magic words after the characters, sing along if you know the song.
Ask questions yourself. This is perhaps the best way to engage a child in interactive interaction. This is how I prefer to fill in the lull in the development of the action, and sometimes even press the "pause" button. Ask your child questions that require a detailed answer, for example: “Why do you think he was happy?” or “How did you guess what would happen next?”
Draw parallels between what is happening on the screen and the child's life. The "Team Umizoumi" heroes went to the aquarium? Remind your child how you went to see the fish. Piglet from the group Alpha (Super Why!) is upset because someone scattered his cubes? Surely the child also had to be upset because of the destroyed fortress.
When the transmission is over, discuss it. After the end credits, together with your child, remember what happened on the screen. Ask: “What was this episode about?” Find out which characters and plot twists your little one liked the most and name your own favorites. Educational TV can really teach a lot if it's facilitated by an adult from the real world!

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care for him!

0 to 5: Simple Tips for Smart Parents is just such a book. Its author, Tracy Catchlow, is a journalist and young mother. Tracey's advice is based on expert advice, delivered in clear, easy-to-understand language, and her own experience as a parent. The first five years are a very important time in a child's life when they develop rapidly. The main thing that parents need to know during this period is the subject of this book.

For you, she will become an assistant, with whom you will raise a wonderful child: smart, happy, moral, inquisitive and, of course, beloved!

Photo: Getty Images

Ekaterina Eremeeva

At what age and how long can a child watch TV?

Television in our homes today is commonplace and everyday reality. A couple of decades ago, children counted the days and hours to watch their favorite cartoon. Today, you can watch at least a hundred episodes in a row and immediately.

Dozens of children's TV channels broadcast almost around the clock. You can find content for absolutely every taste. Children tend to spend a lot of time in front of a screen. Is TV harmful or helpful for children of different ages? In our article we will try to answer this question in detail.

At what age can you watch TV?

Pediatricians and psychologists definitely do not recommend watching TV programs for children under 2 years of age. First of all, it is connected with physiology. Parents often notice that even infants react to television. But they are attracted to bright, flashing pictures and sounds. Allowing such kids to “watch” TV is definitely not worth it.

The fact is that their brain, nervous system, speech, organs of sight, hearing are still immature and are just being formed. For their proper development, the child must look at the surrounding objects, moving and stationary, listen to the sounds around, and not just coming from the screen, interact with living people. Children learn only in contact with adults.

Until the age of 3-4, children are attracted only by the movement on the TV screen. They still do not know how to distinguish between real and imaginary. What happens in the cartoon they transfer to real life.

It is permissible to allow a child to watch TV from 2-3 years old, but not more than 20 minutes a day and with strict quality control of the content. But, the longer the baby lives without a TV in his life, the better for his physical and mental health.

Is there any benefit from TV?

Of course, it is not worth excluding television from the child's world completely. There are also benefits from it:

Broadening one's horizons . Through the screen, you can get acquainted with different countries, traditions, cultures, gain new knowledge in different areas. This can be a powerful source of inspiration and desire to explore the world.
Development of intelligence . With the help of modern technology, children are enthralled with information written in thick and boring encyclopedias. Few people are interested in studying such books, and learning with the help of video content is easy and pleasant.
Vocabulary enrichment . The child hears the correctly delivered speech of TV presenters and TV heroes, learns many new words, the meaning of which will certainly ask questions to parents. It is only important to always answer them and delve into the essence.
Common interests with peers . Children who do not watch TV at all run the risk of becoming "black sheep" in the children's society. Not knowing the popular cartoon characters, TV shows, they do not keep up the conversation, they feel excluded from the team. For very young children, this is not critical, children find a common language in joint games. But the older the child, the more important it is for him to be “on the same wavelength” with his peers. And it cannot be ignored.

Parental delusions about the benefits of television

The modern world of television is large, varied and fascinating. At first glance, he is able to give a lot. But, in fact, for harmonious development, children need something completely different.

Filling them only with knowledge from the screen, often fragmentary and age-inappropriate, is absolutely ineffective and harmful. The child learns, first of all, from an adult with whom he has established contact, a trusting relationship.

Reading books, taking walks together, observing nature, creating art, participating in the daily life of the family - this is what really develops and prepares for the future life. And information TV shows should only complement the learning process.

Sometimes parents encourage and encourage non-speaking children to watch TV “so that they can speak faster”. But the child will speak faster if you communicate with him, look at toys together and talk about everything that you see around.

Funny pictures on TV that move, make sounds and talk do not motivate them to voice them. But when a kid looks at drawings in a book or holds a simple toy in his hands, he has to “make” these characters sound out loud or mentally. First, the child pronounces primitive sounds - “kva-kva”, “beep-beep”; later - when verbs appear in speech - the plots and "speech" of toys and pictures become more complicated.

With a TV, no effort is needed: cartoon characters actively communicate, tell stories and move independently. The child can only passively observe. It does not encourage you to speak on your own.

The negative impact of the TV

Unfortunately, the harm from the TV is really more than good. We list all negative factors below:

1. Negative effect on the organs of vision . For the normal formation of the organs of vision, it is important to correctly dose visual loads. The picture of the TV is projected onto the retina of the eye by the light mass. To see a clear image, the child instinctively strains the eye muscles. The picture is moving and has a lot of detail, which leads to even more eye strain.

Thus, spending more time at the screen every day, the child systematically overstrains his visual system. The result is eye fatigue, headache, and, as a result, visual impairment.

2. Negative effect on the nervous system . The younger the children, the less their brain can absorb information from the programs and cartoons they watch. Lack of life experience and immature nervous system do not allow to analyze what he saw. All this translates into overexcitation of the nervous system, which affects the mood and behavior of the child, his sleep, learning.

3. Speech delay . A child at the age of about a year begins to pronounce the first words, then sentences, and then he can already formulate his thought. But a long stay in front of the screen negatively affects the formation of coherent speech.

The ability to speak and communicate comes to children in the process of interacting with people, repeating after adults. When replacing live communication with a TV screen, there is a delay in the formation of correct and competent oral speech.

4. Negative effect on brain development . A child who spends a lot of time watching TV does not develop imagination, logic, the ability to think, analyze and draw conclusions. TV provides ready-made answers instead of letting the child look for them on their own. TV turns into a "consumer", which obediently absorbs everything that flows from the screen. Skills such as self-control, planning one's actions do not develop.

5. Reduced capacity for imagination and creativity . To come up with something new and create, a child needs to be able to entertain himself, sometimes get bored. And the TV does not allow this, offering ready-made entertainment for every taste. The abuse of watching TV suppresses the creative abilities of a preschooler, does not allow them to develop.

6. Impairment of social skills . For their development, a person needs live communication. The ability to feel the interlocutor, guess his mood, maintain a conversation, organize joint activities - all this is developed only through direct experience of communication with peers and adults.

7. Provoking neuroses . Watching TV shows and films that are inappropriate for age, with scenes that are cruel and frightening, can lead to fears and nightmares in a child. Under no circumstances should this be allowed.

8. Problems with physical condition, motor skills . Watching TV is a passive pastime. But to be healthy, children need to move as much as possible. Sitting for a long time leads to problems with posture, the child develops poorly physically, which will negatively affect his health and quality of life in the future.

9. Eating disorders . Some parents turn on the TV to feed their child. Looking at the flashing funny pictures, the child obediently opens his mouth. But this magical method will bring many problems in the future. Children who are fed under cartoons do not learn to control their feelings of hunger and satiety, they develop improper eating behavior. Therefore, turning on the TV while eating is strongly discouraged.

Children and adults love to eat in front of the TV screen. This is a bad habit that leads to overeating, consuming a lot of tasty and unhealthy food. After all, carried away by viewing, we cease to control what and how much we put in our mouths.

How many hours per day can you spend in front of a screen?

Here are the recommendations of pediatricians, psychologists and teachers:

From 2 to 4 years old you can allow your child to watch TV shows or cartoons no more than 20 minutes a day.
From 4 to 7 years old children already follow the plot, identify themselves with their favorite characters and want to be like them.
Children over 7 years of age are already good at distinguishing reality from television images. They have formed ideas about time and space, they begin to analyze what is happening and reason. At the age of 7-10 years, it is permissible to spend no more than 30-50 minutes a day in front of the TV screen.
By the age of 10-11 the content of the viewed content comes to the fore. He already has his own opinion and preferences, so he himself chooses interesting programs and films. At this age, a child can watch TV 1-3 hours a day.
At the age of 12-13, most children get bored with television. Many of them are switching to video games.

How to make watching TV safe?

Do not place the TV in a child's room. Let it not compete with games, creativity, reading. Adults often turn on the TV in the background. And children quickly adopt this habit. Therefore, first of all, adults need to educate themselves and set an example.

It is imperative to control the time the child spends in front of the screen. After all, self-control in children is still poorly developed, it is difficult for them to break away from the TV.

A great way to control the quality of the content children watch is to watch with them and then discuss what they see. During a conversation, it is important not only to express your own opinion, but also to listen to the opinion of the child, to show respect for his tastes and interests.

When watching TV, stay at least 2-3 meters away from the screen. Acceptable distance is measured by 3-5 diagonals. The larger the diagonal of the TV, the further it should be located from the eyes. Do not watch TV from the side, in the dark or in too bright light. Lighting of medium intensity is best, in which the eyes do not strain too much.

What can a child watch?

A correct show or cartoon for children should meet the following criteria:

a calm and kind cartoon with unhurried action and images that do not change too quickly gives the child time to think and assimilate what he sees;
the plot should be understandable to a child of this particular age;
children benefit from interactive programs that encourage them to answer questions;
also develop children's musical programs and cartoons that form ears, teach dance moves.

It is important to instill in a child from birth a taste for the wonderful art of animation and cinema, to look for interesting and educational programs together and to explore this world together. Censorship in today's access to the information space can only be ours. Parents themselves are obliged to teach the kid to distinguish a bad cartoon from a good one, a stupid program from an educational one.

What should children not watch?

The child's psyche is not yet formed, the baby has not yet developed a critical perception of information. Therefore, the choice of content for the child lies entirely with adults.

Children of all ages should not see violent scenes on the screen and in general all films and programs intended for an adult audience.

Children should not be shown cartoons where the main characters behave aggressively, harm others, and demonstrate life-threatening behavior. Bad behavior should be condemned and good behavior encouraged. Only in this way the concepts of good and evil, justice are formed in children.

How to wean a child from watching TV for a long time?

It will not be easy to wean a child who is accustomed to watching TV uncontrollably. But parents need to show perseverance, patience and benevolence. Parents voice the new rules and explain why it will be so now. Of course, children do not accept this easily. Parents will have to strictly monitor the observance of "screen time" at first.

It is necessary not just to press the button when the limit is reached, but to warn the child in advance, for example, 5-10 minutes before the end. So he will be prepared and, perhaps, scandal will be avoided.

Offer other active activities to replace the TV. After all, the main reason for sticking to the screen is the lack of interesting and exciting activities for the child. Children who play well on their own are less dependent on television. And teaching to play is the task of parents.

Children from a very young age can be involved in household chores. It's useful and very exciting. Bake a cake together, clean the closet, clean the floor - the kids are happy to do all this together with their parents. Older children can organize interesting leisure activities in hobby groups, the choice of which is huge today.

Sometimes even busy children, to whom their parents pay enough attention, tend to spend every free minute in front of the screen. This happens if a child has developed a stereotype of using TV as a means of relaxation. After watching the cartoon, you can gently switch the baby to other activities - drawing, modeling, constructor, etc.