Shockingly, too much TV bad for kids

A study appearing in the April edition of the journal Pediatrics has suggested a link between… A study appearing in the April edition of the journal Pediatrics has suggested a link between television viewing in toddlers and attention deficit disorder later in life.

The government-sponsored study used data from 1,345 children placed into two groups, 1- and 3-year-olds at the outset of the study, and asked their parents about television viewing habits and perceived attention problems in the children at age 7. The children hadn?t been diagnosed with any disorders, but previous studies have shown parents? perceptions to be mostly accurate.

Every daily hour of television watched by the subjects correlated to a 10 percent increase in attention deficit disorders, possibly because the overstimulation of developing brains can permanently rewire the brain, as it has been definitively shown to do in newborn rats.

None of these findings are surprising in the least.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended in 1999 that children under 2 should not watch television at all. Common sense, and not expensive government research, should have allowed that recommendation to become a rational part of child rearing wisdom.

Attention deficit disorders are a relatively new phenomenon, and television?s prevalence as a third parent has been rising, too. Children naturally are wildly imaginative, and if they are merely plunked in front of a television, that fertile mental soil just lies fallow.

Kids have so many more television options open to them thanks to the advent of cable. It?s unlikely that a kid today will be unable to find something to watch, and give up and go play with the dog. But, if television time is closely monitored and kept to a minimum, children are always capable of coming up with something amazing to amuse themselves.

What ever happened to imaginary friends, to running around getting mud in your hair? Story time was a wonderful part of many a childhood, and often led kids to lifelong reading habits themselves.

Jennifer Kotler, assistant director for research at Sesame Workshop, which produces educational children?s programming such as Sesame Street, questioned the study?s lack of emphasis on the content of the television the children watched. The quibble is valid, to a small degree: it?s probably better for a child to watch old episodes of Mr. Rogers? Neighborhood than Robocop. But in reality, no child should spend hours in front of the idiot box when a whole world of crazy kid ideas and fun is right outside the door.