Growing up, I watched way too much television. Looking back, I really regret it -- I now know all of the wonderful things I could have been doing instead, but missed out on. And the effects are still with me today; I'm still prone to watch too much TV if I don't stop myself. Occassionally, Miss J and I go through periods of no TV or greatly reduced TV, and I find I feel much better during those times.
When we found out about the baby, I resolved to keep TV away from our child as long and as much as possible. Reactions from friends has been varied: some think I'm over-reacting (over even doing a disservice to the child), others think it's absolutely the right thing to do, and finally some think it's the right thing to do, but have found that it's too difficult. (Where do you stand? Leave a comment.) Fortunately I personally know some good role models for people who have successfully kept their children away from television.
I also immediately went to the library and picked up Marie Winn's The Plug-In Drug, a book I'd been meaning to read for many years. It makes a solid case on the ill-effects of TV, and offers a lot of strategies for reducing or eliminating television from your family life. The "case studies" of families who reduced their TV watching is particularly interesting; it seems that limiting TV only to a couple of days a week (most commonly the weekend) -- as opposed to say an hour a day -- had the best outcome; the children ended up disinterested by the time TV-watching days rolled around.
This week I also learned about two new studies on the effects of TV on toddlers, both out of the University of Washington. The first study, by Dimitri Christakis, showed that the risk of children aged 1 to 3 developing attention disorders by age 7 increases 10% with every hour of TV they watch per day. They note that the average one-year old watches about 2 hours per day; the average 3 year old watches 3.6 hours.
The second study, by economist (!) Frederick Zimmerman, showed that the more TV a young child watched, the more like he or she would become a bully when they got older. (Whether or not a child was a bully was determined by survey of the child's mother.) I found this part of the New Scientist's coverage of the study the most interesting:
The study also looked at two other factors thought to decrease the likelihood of bullying - cognitive stimulation and parental emotional support. It found that children whose parents regularly exposed them to ideas - by reading aloud or taking them to museums, for example - were a third less likely to become bullies, as were those whose parents provided them with emotional support - by eating meals together and talking.
"Each of these things has an independent effect," says Zimmerman. "So parents who are not going to read to their children and who put their kids in front of the TV instead [represent] a double whammy" for their children's chances of becoming bullies, he says.
On a somewhat related note, I also find myself increasingly interested in Montessori's methods, mainly as a result of reading Montessori From the Start. I like and agree with the emphasis on self-reliance, curiosity, and basic, physical, non-technical toys. Some parts of the book are a little more out there, but it's still good food for thought.
Shoot your television. Seriously.
Ok, take this challenge. Put it away for six weeks. If you want it back after that, then find a way to reduce. I've given this challenge to lots of other people and every single one of them gave away their TV at the end of the 42 days.
As far as toys go...at our house, Mr. Party Baby's favorite toys seem to be Tupperware®, and wooden blocks painted in primary colors. After 12 years of parenting the only thing I can say about having a lot of toys is that it makes it really hard for kids to keep their rooms clean. When a lot of stuff is out the kidlets get overwhelmed and freak out. Mr. Party Baby has a few toys that he's received as gifts, but we cycle through them. We put some way in storage and swap them out every couple of weeks. Works great. We do the same with the books on his bookshelf.
Posted by: chris | April 28, 2005 at 01:17 AM
Not having a TV in the home is not going to harm your kid in the least.
I spent a large portion of my childhood reading science fiction books, many of which aren't much better than sitcoms.
It seems like the bigger question is how to foster a diverse set of interests and social activities which would discourage your little squirt from fixating on a single, fluffy, information medium.
The wee child could learn mandarin chinese while riding a unicycle through coffee houses, for example.
Posted by: Trevor | April 28, 2005 at 05:36 AM
I have the same history as you - way too much TV growing up. I've been able to reduce or even put the box away for months at a time, but I too have to be vigilant about falling back into patterns of watching too much. I wasn't sure how much I wanted my kid to watch TV, but I knew it was less.
Almost four years into the kid experiment, I feel we have done pretty well. While some people focus a lot on the time aspect (how much per day) I think there are three factors of roughly equal importance. Along with time there is content and, perhaps most overlooked, attitude.
Timewise, we started off with no TV for quite a while - I don't think there is any benefit to having infants watch merely as a distraction.
As she got older we started with one or maybe two shows a day, in the morning. She would wake up, have breakfast, play a bit, then watch a bit as we got ready for the day.
Today, the shows are different but the same routine still works for us. She'll watch about an hour TV total in the morning, depending on the day's plans. On days we tend to get out of the house earlier, she watches less or none. What I like is that it is still flexible - she doesn't feel like she has to see a certain show (although she certainly has favorites), and if we have a weekend where there is little/no TV watching, I don't feel guilty about having her pick out a movie to watch.
Content is key of course, for both the kid's sake and your's. We started out with definite boundaries: No Barney, no Teletubbies, no other shows we found annoying. The first show she watched was "Play With Me Sesame", a Sesame Street variant for even younger kids. As time went on, we let her pick her own shows, within limits, and definitely with nudges from us towards shows we think are better. Sesame Street is a natural for youngs kids. Alas, our efforts to keep Elmo exposure to a minimum failed. It is interesting to watch her interest in specific shows intensify/disappear. For months, a show will be a daily request and then one day, she's done with it. Forever. As an example, her current core of favorites include:
What's also interesting is trying to figure out if a show has a lot of merchandise because it is a good show, or if the show is there just to sell stuff. We saw two shows, Dora the Explorer and Blues Clues, cross from one side to the other, as it added characters and/or tweaked the format in blatant attempts to have more merchandising opportunities. Too bad for Blues Clues, which had been really good.
A big difference from when we were growing up is the amount of choices available. Via cable I have the choice of two PBS stations, two Playhouse Disney channels, Nickelodeon, Discovery Kids, Noggin, plus a PBS feed that shows kid content 24hrs a day. And of course you can time-shift everything with Tivo or as we do with our old-fashioned VCR :)
Of the channels, only Noggin is commercial-free (filling the inbetween time with shorts and animations) which is great since most of its shows skew towards the youngest viewers. I don't understand how PBS claims to not have commercials anymore. If you have Ronald McDonald jumping around with kids for sixty seconds enjoying the magic of a McDonald's eating experience, that is a commercial. They, as with most of the other stations, stick to having the commercials between the shows at least, so they are easier to avoid.
I think the other thing that has helped has been having the right attitude towards watching. TV time is never a reward; it's not considered special. If there starts to be an argument about it, we just turn it off for a couple of days (or in the case of one extreme defiance period, put it in the closet for a week (you don't have to worry about that until they can turn it back on by themselves)). Plus, she just about never sees us watching TV, outside of watching a movie with her.
Could we have gone the no TV at all route? I think so, and we did consider it. I'm happy we were able to come up with a plan and stick to it - it is very tempting at times to just leave the TV on for an extra half hour. Or hour. Or maybe the Lion King again ;) As it stands, I think we have a good balance of having a bit of a needed break in the mornings and her being entertained and actually learning things more often than not.
That's probably more info than you needed, feel free to email me if you want me to ramble on even further :)
Posted by: mikepop | April 28, 2005 at 06:18 AM
It is indeed the great debate. The radical view is throw it out and never watch it again. I can tell you having a 5 year old and a 2 year old that the educational TV is much different today. When we grew up you had 1 hour a day of Sesame Street and that was that. Today TV shows such as Dora the Explorer and Blue's Clues are great examples of truly educational TV. But without question the most important activity has been reading with our kids. We got into the habit very early on to reading them books at least prior to bed and often times much more than that.
Don't get me wrong it is INCREDIBLY easy to park them in front of a video and take care of a few things around the house. I would highly recommend you and Miss J pick up the Baby Mozart series. They are all set to music composed by Mozart and they display vibrant colored toys and objects throughout the length of the videos. There are tons of studies showing the importance of music in creative development. Michael as with anything the key is MODERATION. So there is no reason to Kill Your Television!!!
Posted by: Dolan | April 28, 2005 at 06:22 AM
We haven't given the topic a lot of thought yet really, which probably makes us bad parents, but I don't expect to be removing any of the TVs from my home. I expect we'll probably just play it by ear. Of course, schoolwork, one-on-one playtime, and reading to the kids will come first (Venessa already reads to each of them every day!). Beyond that, I think it will be a judgement call as to whether or not we think they are spending too much time in front of the tube.
I never watched a ton of TV myself, because I'd always rather be out tinkering with or building something, and I hope my kids are the same way. If my parents ever caught us in front of the TV on a nice sunny day, she'd turn it off and kick us outside!
We show the kids those inane Baby Einstein videos, but they're still a bit young to even focus for very long on them. Do they get anything from them?...who knows. As Tim said though, it does allow you to at least pacify them temporarily in order to get some things done around the house. Babies are a tremendous drain on your time and energy (at least twins have been), and even a small break afforded by occasional TV is valuable to us. I think it would be difficult to completely eliminate TV.
There's also a social element to consider. Do you want your kid to be the only one in class who can't join in a discussion among other kids about the big game, or an overwhelmingly popular kids show that everyone's watching? Maybe you don't care about such things. Just something to consider. Maybe those kids not watching TV aren't bulies, but are they being tortured by bullies for that reason?
Posted by: Erich | April 28, 2005 at 08:09 AM
I'm sure you know this, but removing TV entirely is probably the best possible approach to creating a future TV junkie.
Erich makes a good point too about the social element of not being able to talk about a popular show with friends at school, etc. To some small degree, you are really at the mercy of popular policy here.
I also watched a ton of TV as a kid and don't watch it at all now. It's interesting that the commenters thus far who watched a lot as kids seem to be the ones who watch the least now.
Posted by: Ficus | April 28, 2005 at 12:55 PM
Maybe you knew this ? But this week is 'National TV Turn off week' (or is that Turn off the TV week).
Equally co-incidental my daughter goes to a Montessori school here in San Rafael. They actually sent notes home to all the parents about 'no tv week'.
So - TV First: In our house we have a TV and our children watch it. Not much - perhaps 30-45 minutes at night before going to bed. Moderation in all things is sort of our creed, whether it's diet or TV. Tim Goodman had a good piece in yesterdays SF Chronicle on TV Turn off week - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/27/DDGDHCENU21.DTL - I'm more concerned by the lack of personal responsibility that seems to be growing in our society than I am about the evils of 45 minutes of some of the good programs other commenters have already mentioned.
Montessori School: As I mentioned Sylvie goes to Montessori de Terra Linda here in San Rafael (http://www.mdtl.org) She's been attending the school since September last year and really enjoys it. She's made a lot of friends there and definately grown over the last 7 months. Montessori can seem a little odd sometimes if you can remember your own early school experiences (and weren't a Montessori pupil). The approach can seem very 'free form' and lead you to wonder how they're 'learning anything'. This evening happened to be a time when parents could spend time with their children in the classroom observing and taking part in the activities. One of the things Sylvie did was to make us mint tea. Doesn't sound much like a 'lesson' however since it involved going to the garden, finding the right mint plant, picking leaves, placing them in the pot, correctly handling the hot water whilst pouring it, turning over the egg timer (and understanding the importance of waiting), serving us tea, and cleaning up. All on her own and without overbearing adult supervision (we just sat quietly at the table) that's a lot of different skills - not bad for a 3 year old.
I think it's also important to 'vet' or at least examine closely any school you're considering. There are also some 'variations' of the Montessori approach which may (or may not) be more to your liking.
In addition to agreeing with your points about self-reliance I think it's very good that children be exposed to a mix of age ranges in a class and learn early on about accepting help from others and then also learn how to give assistance as they grow older. This is a key part of the Montessori approach.
Posted by: Andrew Kimpton | April 28, 2005 at 08:04 PM
My parents went the rationing route, and it seemed to work out pretty well. They read for their own pleasure, and took us on weekly trips to the library to stock up on our own reading material. So we learned that reading was how people entertain themselves. By the time I could dose myself with television, I had long since lost most interest. (Strange how nobody ever complains about an addiction to reading that consumes entire weekends!)
I suspect the important piece of that experience was that my parents were models. We ended up doing what they did. If they'd forbade television for us but been junkies themselves, we might have ended up TV watchers.
Posted by: C J Silverio | April 29, 2005 at 10:24 AM
Wow, great responses! Thanks everyone for your good advice and thoughts.
Chris: I have in fact gone a lot longer than six weeks without a television (up to a year, actually), but starting watching again after a while. Currently we restrict TV to just a few set days a week. Tivo obviously helps a lot with that.
I definitely agree with you about not having too many toys, and someone else recently told me about the "swapping out" trick, which I like a lot. I think we'll certainly do that.
Trevor: I agree, having a diverse set of interests is key, and that's one of the reasons I want to raise a family in a city -- exposure to so many different things. And we're definitely going the Chinese route, although I still haven't decided whether it will be Mandarin or Cantonese.
Mike: I really think you hit the nail on the head with attitude. Whether you have a TV or not, it's your attitude towards it that will shape your children's views. If you give TV a huge amount of attention in order to keep your kids away from it, then as Ficus noted, you'll just end up driving them towards it.
In The Plug-In Drug, one of the more interesting (and easiest) suggestions was just to put your TV is a less central area than your living room or family room. Several families noted that this was enough of a barrier to keep their kids from watching it excessively. Putting the TV in a non-central location is a physical (and subtle) way to express the opinion that TV isn't special.
Tim: I'm with you on the music, and Miss J even more so. (Her parents are musicians, so she grew up with a lot of music in the house and wants to do the same with our baby.) I've heard of Baby Mozart, but I haven't checked them out. And I didn't know they made videos -- somehow I though it was all audio. I'll look into it -- thanks!
Erich: Your point about TV providing a distraction for the kids and a break for the parents is well taken, and this is something I've been hearing a lot from people who had intended not to let their children watch TV at all. We'll just have to wait and see...maybe Miles and Owen will provide enough distraction!
Regarding the social effects, I wonder how much of an actual rather than a perceived problem this really is. I suppose it depends on how adamant you are about no TV -- I wouldn't forbid the kids from playing at Billy's house just because they have a TV, for example. I'm also curious about at what age children start discussing TV amongst themselves when they're not watching it. Does anyone know? My guess would be around 7 or 8. If we can keep TV away from them that long, I'd consider it a victory.
Ficus: Again, I think it's all in the attitude. Being freaky about keeping them away from anything will almost certainly backfire -- isn't this the lesson of Footloose? :)
Andrew: I wasn't aware that this was TV-turnoff week! I'm with you; personal responsibility is where it's at, and parents need to lead by example.
Thanks for the info on Montessori schools! There are a couple near our new house, and we're going to check them out in the near future. I think your example of Sylvie making the mint tea is wonderful -- there are a lot of great lessons being learned there, and very age-appropriate. Hopefully the schools near us will be as good as yours.
Posted by: Michael | April 29, 2005 at 10:31 AM
CJ: Mmmm, libraries. One of my earliest and most pleasant memories is walking through the city (Elizabeth, NJ) to the public library, with my mother and sister, to pick up some books (I was heavy into the Curious George). I think it may have been a regular thing, but I'm not positive. Regardless, it made me a huge lover of books and libraries.
Boy, this turned out to be such a great thread. Maybe next week I'll ask the crucial question of our time: at what age will you allow your child to have a cell phone? That's where they'll be watching all of their TV anyway...
Posted by: Michael | April 29, 2005 at 10:47 AM
Mandarin vs. Cantonese: Mandarin is dominant in China, with Cantonese being a very small minority there (5-6%). But Cantonese makes up a sizable majority of expatriate Chinese speakers (in America, at least). I don't know why that is.
Posted by: Ficus | April 29, 2005 at 05:50 PM
"I'm also curious about at what age children start discussing TV amongst themselves when they're not watching it. Does anyone know? My guess would be around 7 or 8."
Again, it is going to depend on the kids, but my daughter and her cousin started talking about TV shows when they were about 3. I'm not sure what started them off on it, but they weren't watching at the time.
With so many parents/soon-to-be parents/readers here, I'd be remiss not to put in a shamlessly self-promoting link to my fledgling site where I'm posting short children's stories I write:
Media Are Alive
Just a handful so far, but there are a bunch in development.
Posted by: mikepop | April 29, 2005 at 06:06 PM
Ficus - the theory (as explained to me when I was living in Cantonese speaking Hong Kong) is that the Cantonese being Southern Chinese and coastal dwelling (in the main) were natural traders and that lead to the spread of the language.
To that end Fujianese (Taiwanese) and the Shanghai dialect are also spread much wider than their comparitively small populations would suggest.
Cantonese is also the more 'difficult' language to speak since it has 7-9 different tones in common usage vs. Mandarins 5-7 tones.
Bizarre small world reference again - on one of the shelves in Sylvies classroom (probably part of a project or theme - I'll ask the teacher) is a book 'Hu is a Tiger' (also known as Ma Ma Hu Hu) by Peggy Goldstein, it appears to be out of print right now. It's a nice book introducing how to write in Chinese which I think is **WAY** more tricky than speaking any of the dialects (it's also more portable since the written Chinese form is common to all spoken dialects)
Posted by: Andrew Kimpton | April 30, 2005 at 03:13 PM
Two cents on the question about when kids start discussing TV among themselves: I'm working right now with a bunch (~60) of kindergarteners (5-6 yrs) and there is definitely common pop-culture knowledge that factors into their play - Clifford, Arthur, Disney Princesses, Spiderman, etc. Discussion is of the form, "Let's play Arthur. You be DW." rather than "Did you see Arthur this morning? It was awesome!" Not all of this comes from TV, but it seems to be a major source for these kids.
Once kids start getting into social play (4-ish) they do draw on a base of common knowledge that a TV-free kid won't share. Of course, many of these shows have books with the same characters so that might be way to bridge the gap if that's a concern.
Posted by: colleen | May 02, 2005 at 10:01 AM
I had unrestricted access to Television (and movies) as a kid in the 70's. Like Mr. Morrissey I regret wasting so much of my time that way.
As for long lasting effects... Good and bad. I believe that Sesame Street and The Electric Company helped make me a better person. Being allowed to see Taxi Driver, Last Tango in Paris and Clockwork Orange (all before the age of ten) seems to have had a different kind of impact.
When all is said and done I think we are more heavily influenced by our day to day reality (as children) then we ever could be by TV, movies or books. Get that part right and the rest matters little.
Posted by: Laurens | May 03, 2005 at 11:41 AM
Colleen -- that's really interesting. Have you happened to observe any situations where one of the kids doesn't get a reference? How do the other kids react?
Posted by: Michael | May 05, 2005 at 06:54 PM
I can't think of an occasion on which a kid didn't get a reference, so I'm not sure.
I did go to graduate school with someone who had a TV (and pop culture) free childhood. While this person has gone on to lead a happy & successful life (married, interesting job, kid, close friends) they definitely stood out as a bit different. Like when they didn't know who the Beatles were, for example. On the other hand, this person is one of the most creative and caring people I know.
So basically, it's a crap shoot either way.
Posted by: Colleen | May 10, 2005 at 09:10 AM