BabyBites

Television and Your Child

Just do a Google search on television watching + children and you will get 44 million page results. There have been numerous studies on the topic as well as many playground conversations about it. Baby registries are filled with Baby Einstein DVDs and any toddler that’s been to “school” will be sure to hear about a few television characters from their classmates. Most parents do tune into television: aaccording to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year).  So it stands to reason that we allow our children to participate in this activity as well (otherwise, when do we fit in all that TV time). So if watching television could create long-term problems (obesity, aggression, racism, stereotyping, learning disabilities), then how do we as parents reconcile letting our children watch it? What are your house-TV rules?

~Elise, babybites NJ