Cooper! Turn off the T.V.
“Cooper! Turn off the T.V.”. I have heard that phrase more times than I care to remember over the last couple years. We do not allow our 5 year old to watch television that much, but when we do, he completely tunes out everything and everyone that is around him. I asked my family doctor about how much television is bad for children. He gave me some ideas, but basically left it up to me to research the issue and draw my own conclusion. After some brief research, I was fascinated on what I found. Even though there are television shows that help develop children, watching too much television is bad for children because television takes away from developmental time and studies show that too much television help lead to obesity in young adults.
Children two years old and younger
When my first child, Cooper, was born, we, like most first time parents, had no clue on what to do. It’s not like they sent an instruction manual home. I would come home from work and would sit on the couch with him while he had his bottle and we would watch NCIS. It appeared to me that he would be mesmerized by the television. He could not take his eyes off of it. I have since learned that at that age he could only make out shapes, and could not see what was on the television. I have also learned that toddlers less than two years old should not watch any television at all. Having the television on, even if you are not watching it, could slow your child’s development. It could slow your child’s language and reading development, as well as their short-term memory. According to Hill, David L. (2013) “A toddler learns a lot more from banging pans on the floor while you cook dinner than he does from watching a screen for the same amount of time, because every now and then the 2 of you look at each other.” We would use the television as a baby sitter at times. Other times it would be a night time show before we would take him to bed. Looking back we should have been reading to Cooper more and allowing him to play instead of sitting in front of the boob-tube.
Violence and Risky Behavior I noticed one day that Cooper was punching one of my friends in the stomach. As I said previously, your child is born, and they just send them home with you. With no instruction manual! I know right from wrong, my wife knows right from wrong, therefore, Cooper should as well. Wrong. They have to learn it from someone, or somewhere. Growing up I do not remember being in trouble that much. I did not get into fights at school. I watched the same shows as my neighbors did, G.I. Joe, Dukes of Hazzard, etc. There was violence in those shows, fights, gun battles, car chases. But now as a father, I am on the watch out for shows that teaches violence. So, I asked Cooper where he had learned to do that. He said he didn’t know. After a while I started to see a pattern in his behavior, and to be honest, it started to concern me. I had always let Cooper watch cartoons that were older than what he was, now I am second guessing myself on that decision. He loves to watch Marvel’s “Avengers Assemble” and Star Wars “The Clone Wars”. Did these shows help cause this aggression? Or help grow his aggression? Dale Kunkel, PhD, a Professor of Communications at the University of Arizona states that “Violence is widespread across the television landscape”. Of nearly 10,000 shows sampled, 60% had violent content. With that kind of rate of violence, it’s hard for a child who is left unattended in front of a television not to find inappropriate material. Television violence is not the only concern with children and television. Health risks are also a concern.
Television and Obesity I’m fat. I have always been overweight from the time that I was four or five. My weight gain was not from sitting in front of the television, I was active as a kid, and still am today. But I have struggled with my weight all my life, and I do not want my kids going through the same hassles that their father did. “How much weight did I gain?” I remember asking my doctor shortly after Cooper was born when I was in for my quarterly diabetic checkup. She had asked me what, if anything, I was doing different. I said nothing really, other than spending more time on the couch after work with the newborn watching television. And there you have it, a month after my son was born, I had gained nearly 25 pounds. I was not getting to the gym every night. I was not eating healthy. And I was becoming a couch potato. Growing up I was always over weight. The last thing that I wanted for my son was to go through the same things I did when I was his age. According to the CDC (2013) children from the ages 6 months to 6 years spend on average 2 hours a day in front of a television. This takes time away from physical activities they could be doing and can help lead to obesity. Another issue is that television can help lead to poor, unhealthy food choices, due to the advertisements on the television shows and commercials. Physical activities is key for being healthy. You cannot get that from sitting in front of a television or a video game console.
Where do I go from here? While television can be a teaching tool in some cases, for the most part television for children is a bad idea. They would be better off out playing or interacting with their parents then sitting in front of the television. Even letting them play with pots and pans or having them in the kitchen while you cook is better than having them sit in front of the television. Knowing what I know now, when our second child arrives in November, she will be kept away from the television as much as possible. I will also begin to regulate what shows our 5 year old is watching. Watching shows with too much violence is not healthy for him. I also realize that he is a boy, and will allow him to be a boy. The main point that I took from all my research is to be involved in your child’s life. You need to know what they are doing to be a good parent. You can never have too much information.

References * Hill, David L (2013) Dad to Dad: Parenting like a Pro * http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html * http://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/Media/Pages/Why-to-Avoid-TV-Before-Age-2.aspx * http://www.aacap.org/aacap/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/Facts_for_Families_Pages/Children_And_TV_Violence_13.aspx * https://www.apa.org/about/gr/pi/advocacy/2008/kunkel-tv.aspx * http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/problem.html