Turn off E-Babysitter. Children And Television

Next time you are going to turn Dora the Explorer on; you may want to think again. Unfortunately TV has become a second babysitter in our lives. It is very convenient to turn it on and put the child on auto, just so we can take a breather. 

At University of Bristol, researchers studied 1,000 children aged 10 and 11. Children who were in front of a TV, video games or computer screens for over 2 hours were noticed to have 60% higher rate of developing psychological problems, peer related issues and emotional disturbances, regardless of physical activity. They also noticed that these problems were worse in children who have less than an hour time of vigorous exercise.  

These children rated their emotional state from always, sometimes and never and answered questions like ‘I am often unhappy, down-hearted or tearful’, or ‘I am usually on my own’, ‘I generally play alone or keep to myself’. It is sad that a young child feels "unhappy" or tearful" all the time. 

There was another study from the same institute which evaluated parental TV viewing. Higher parental TV viewing was associated with higher child TV viewing among both boys and girls. This would in turn cause problems which I mentioned earlier. As we already know obesity has also been linked to prolonged TV viewing.

For some time in our household we have instituted a policy of no TV during the week. However, during their toddler years they did watch a fare share of the silver screen, which I am not proud of.

So next time, think again before we welcome SpongBob into our homes.

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