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Actually the whole premise of Blue's Clues, which was ground breaking when it first came out (I miss Steve ), was that by watching the same episode all week long it built skills and confidence in whatever lesson it was teaching by repetition. I don't think there's anything wrong with them, like you said it's like the favorite story book being read over and over.
True. Repetition is great for kids. That's how they learn. There may be a potential problem with the medium though.
A recent study by Children's Hospital in Seattle, led by Dimitri Christakis, M.D., an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and co-director of the school's Institute for Child Health, seemed to show there to be a very clear correlation between hours of TV watched between the ages of 1 and 3.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with this study. The study was based on parents’ recollection of their children’s television viewing habits and this kind of after-the-fact research is often inaccurate. The study also did not actually test the children for clinical attention deficit disorders, nor for any predisposition for that. Additionally, they did not seem to take into consideration the programming being viewed. I feel this is critical.
That last point is something that I have some question about. It has to do with what we know about how the brain develops. The brain is still in development during early childhood and it ‘tunes’ itself to the environment. The problem I have with a lot of television, including many that are created and marketed to children, is how rapidly the scenes change. My hypothesis is that this can cause the brain to tune itself to a world where things are changing at that rapid pace and, when the world turns out not to work that way, can lead to the person feeling impatient and becoming easily distracted.
I took a stop watch and watched some kids’ television and started timing the scenes. Blues Clues and Mr. Rogers were the best by far where they hardly every cut between scenes but instead ‘walk’ to the next set. Most other programs where constantly cutting between scenes and camera angles. Watching these later shows at all, and certainly in repetition, I see as a cause for concern.
I suspect that this could ultimately be the main problem. If television is to be marketed as having been created for children, it should be safe for children. Toys are tested for safety, why not television?
Last edited by Operknockity; 08-31-2008 at 02:05 PM..
Reason: grammer
Nope. Personaly, I think television can be a great learning tool. We just need to take some responisibility in it's use. With the amount of money that goes into the production of children's television, I think some of that should be put into designing the programming to be safe for young minds.
there are shows that are good for kids on TV, but we still opt out. i don't know if it's more for us or for the kids, but we just rent movies from time to time. it's nice to not have your kids impersonating every bratty or annoying cartoon character they see lol
when the kids go to the sitter's or to some family members houses they get to veg out on the TV but other than that, they don't see much TV. i'd say they watch it maybe once every 2 months or so, if that. so they are entranced when they do come across it lol
actually i read that France banned TV shows aimed at children under 3 years old, to shield them from developmental risks. thought that was interesting!
Our problem is movies... my kids love watching movies... but they do other activities whilethe movie is on... they don't sit still... i guess it is more for background noise while they play... but once the movie is over they want to watch it again and agian... I put my food down... I will literally unplug the TV... and tell them it is broken... but they just continue on playing. I do find if it is raining or they are on the tired side and I give in... forget about it... the behavior changes and they tend to act out if the tv is on and they have had too much... I hate the tv actually... I would much rather they go into the play room and hang out in there and use thier brains productively... and I will actually tell them to go and use their noggins and play instead of turning into mush in front of the tv... sometimes they groan... but most of the time they know if they have had too much... It is hard to assess sometimes...
Nope. Personaly, I think television can be a great learning tool. We just need to take some responisibility in it's use. With the amount of money that goes into the production of children's television, I think some of that should be put into designing the programming to be safe for young minds.
Exactly! I think its kinda too bad sometimes when parents say "tv is bad, no tv in our house!" because they're generalizing and missing out on a lot of good too. It's like having no internet because there's so much negetive on the internet. Ya there is but there is also a lot of positive. It's called being a responsible parent.
My kids watch tv and play video games...they are also very good students, very active with sports and I dont use it as a babysitter...unlike some people
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), was that by watching the same episode all week long it built skills and confidence in whatever lesson it was teaching by repetition. I don't think there's anything wrong with them, like you said it's like the favorite story book being read over and over.
Nope.
