Play-Learn-Grow-Repeat

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
I am guilty. I admit it. Lock me up and put me away. I let my child watch TV. In case you’ve forgotten, she’s very young—only one wonderful year old. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, she should not be watching any TV at all until she is two years old. Even when children do watch TV, it should be strictly limited. I don’t do that either. It’s on a lot.

Haley’s exposure to TV began innocently enough. A few minutes of a show kept her still long enough for me to feed her dinner. It stopped her screaming if I had to place her in the playard and run to the bathroom. Now, however, we have it on purely for her entertainment. If you add on the time she spends watching Sesame Street videos on youtube, we’re blowing any reasonable screen time limits out of the water.

I guess I should feel worse about this, but my dirty little secret is that I don’t.

I’m not sure why that is. Maybe because she doesn’t actually watch it that much when it’s on—only when she’s captive in her high chair or a song comes on. She spends a lot of time doing other things, like kicking a soccer ball with remarkable precision and “reading” her board books. Plus, I watched a lot of TV growing up, and I turned out pretty great.

I realize this is a completely ridiculous justification. While I’m making excuses, also please let me divert some of the blame to my parents. They are really the ones who started having the TV on more often—probably because when they would be watching her and she’d fuss, it was an easy form of distraction. I don’t know what it is with grandparents, but they need her happy all the time. When she starts whining with me, I shrug and say, “Sorry kid, life is pain.”

I suppose the reason I allow this TV watching to continue is that I don’t honestly believe in the harmful effects. I keep her far from the screen and the volume low to protect her eyes and ears. But in terms of content, I think it helps more than it hurts. At some point, she may start learning things. PBS Kids and Nick Jr. are MUCH more educational than anything I had when I was little. As I mentioned, she only really seems to care about the songs, anyway. Perhaps once she is more interested, I will begin to set limits. Life is painful that way.

There seem to be various opinions on using technology (television, computers, DVD players, etc..) with young children. I have seen people in cars driving down Main Street with three DVD players showing different movies on the back of each seat. I have seen parents handing over their cell phones so their young child could watch a TV show online and be entertained while at a restaurant. You see the portable DVD players on airplanes and even in hair salons. Is this a bad thing?

As both an educator and a mother, I have to defend technology. Have I seen it misused? Yes. Have I seen young children learn from technology? Yes. In my opinion, the real issue is how you use the technology. In my own situation, Brady does watch television for an average of 30 minutes per day. I will be honest, as a work-at-home mom; there are times that I sit with him and use those 30 minutes to work. I do try to make the 30 minutes of TV time educational, but sometimes he just wants to watch Thomas (which does teach some good life skills on friendship, teamwork, and more). Now I have never handed over my Blackberry to Brady (and I doubt I ever will).

I don’t have a DVD player in my car. However, if we travel more than two hours in the car, I do take the portable DVD player along and some favorite DVDs. I have also used it during flights. (I am sure that the other passengers on the planes were thankful). And the web is FULL of resources for Brady to try independently or explore with me. We don’t spend nearly the amount of time that I would like exploring all of the amazing resources. If only the days were 30 hours, instead of 24 hours! We even have a computer program that hooks up to your computer and has kid-friendly CDs (like Scooby Doo) all that teach letters, numbers, beginning reading, math, and more. Now I will be honest, we don’t have that connected yet. But it is on “the list” for August. So, yes I do use technology.

We have all seen the parents who keep the television on all day as a babysitter. Is that child learning anything? Well…. maybe. Still, I feel we would be doing all of our children a disservice if we didn’t introduce them to various forms of technology at a young age. We live in a technological world, and our children often adapt to this world more quickly than we do. Let’s be honest, there are fourth grade students who are teaching their teachers how to use certain technologies. So as parents, it is important that we keep up with the changing times and prepare our children for the future, which will definitely include various forms of technology, most of which probably hasn’t even been invented yet.