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conuly
And there's scads of comments going "Well, my kid watches TV at a very young age, but that's okay, everything in moderation - and besides, it's just background noise! He does other things!"
TV on as "background noise" isn't magically different from other types of "background noise" - say, heavy chatter, jackhammers, living under the flight path, lots of traffic, or loud rock music.
TV on as "background noise" interferes with your child's ability to focus and concentrate. Sure, your kid's still "doing other things" while "not actually" watching TV - but they're not spending as much time on any one activity as they would with the TV turned off.
TV on as "background noise" makes it harder for your child to hear things they should be hearing - like speech. Your child will not learn to speak from watching TV, and having the TV on "just in the background" will make it harder for your child to learn to speak because they can't hear YOU speaking as clearly, nor filter out speech from noise.
Saying "Well, they're not vegged out in front of the TV, so that's all right" is wrong. It is factually incorrect. It is NOT all right.
And then they go "everything in moderation". Man, that phrase pisses me off, not least because nobody really believes it. They don't use that phrase when talking about things nobody does with their kids. "Should I let my kid have some of my pot? Sure, everything in moderation! Should I let my 5 year old drive? Sure, just not on the highway - everything in moderation! Should I let my kid skip school once a week? Sure, everything in moderation - school is part of everything, isn't it?" And they don't really use it when talking about things we all think we need more of. "Should I get more than 10 minutes of exercise a day? Nah, you don't want to do it, exercise in moderation. Should I brush my teeth after dinner? Well, you brushed after breakfast, let's not go overboard - do it in moderation! Should I drag my lazy butt off to work today? Sheesh, work, you went just last week, everything in moderation! Hey, there's a winning lottery ticket on the ground, should I pick it up? What would you do with all that money? Being rich isn't something you can do in moderation!"
No, what they mean seems to be something like "I think this is a bad idea, but I find it convenient to pretend it's not... so long as I don't do it "too much", a vague term I'm not about to define for you."
It's all so sketchy. If you think you need to plop your baby (because this is who we're talking about, babies) in front of the television so you can handle things which are difficult to do with an undistracted baby floating about - go ahead and do that. And if you think it's a bad thing for them, go ahead and do NOT do that. But don't go around with weaselly little phrases like "everything in moderation" like it's okay so long as your child doesn't fit some arbitrary set of characteristics, like looking at the TV or something.
TV on as "background noise" isn't magically different from other types of "background noise" - say, heavy chatter, jackhammers, living under the flight path, lots of traffic, or loud rock music.
TV on as "background noise" interferes with your child's ability to focus and concentrate. Sure, your kid's still "doing other things" while "not actually" watching TV - but they're not spending as much time on any one activity as they would with the TV turned off.
TV on as "background noise" makes it harder for your child to hear things they should be hearing - like speech. Your child will not learn to speak from watching TV, and having the TV on "just in the background" will make it harder for your child to learn to speak because they can't hear YOU speaking as clearly, nor filter out speech from noise.
Saying "Well, they're not vegged out in front of the TV, so that's all right" is wrong. It is factually incorrect. It is NOT all right.
And then they go "everything in moderation". Man, that phrase pisses me off, not least because nobody really believes it. They don't use that phrase when talking about things nobody does with their kids. "Should I let my kid have some of my pot? Sure, everything in moderation! Should I let my 5 year old drive? Sure, just not on the highway - everything in moderation! Should I let my kid skip school once a week? Sure, everything in moderation - school is part of everything, isn't it?" And they don't really use it when talking about things we all think we need more of. "Should I get more than 10 minutes of exercise a day? Nah, you don't want to do it, exercise in moderation. Should I brush my teeth after dinner? Well, you brushed after breakfast, let's not go overboard - do it in moderation! Should I drag my lazy butt off to work today? Sheesh, work, you went just last week, everything in moderation! Hey, there's a winning lottery ticket on the ground, should I pick it up? What would you do with all that money? Being rich isn't something you can do in moderation!"
No, what they mean seems to be something like "I think this is a bad idea, but I find it convenient to pretend it's not... so long as I don't do it "too much", a vague term I'm not about to define for you."
It's all so sketchy. If you think you need to plop your baby (because this is who we're talking about, babies) in front of the television so you can handle things which are difficult to do with an undistracted baby floating about - go ahead and do that. And if you think it's a bad thing for them, go ahead and do NOT do that. But don't go around with weaselly little phrases like "everything in moderation" like it's okay so long as your child doesn't fit some arbitrary set of characteristics, like looking at the TV or something.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 08:51 pm (UTC)However, there have been other studies on the results of OTHER types of background noise. Children who go to school under the flight path are, within three years, a year behind children who go to school in a quiet area (in one such study it was classrooms on different sides of the same building!), children who lived in a housing project built straddling a highway in Manhattan (the things we New Yorkers dream up...) had a much higher than usual incidence of language delays and did more poorly in school than you'd expect, kindergarteners in a year where there was road construction did worse than their counterparts with the same teacher, in the same classroom, a year earlier and later.
So I'm thinking music may also be detrimental if it's on constantly.