Study Shows Parents Giving Tots Too Much TV Time

[Blessedx4]

Boob Tube Makes Terrible Babysitter, Family Psychologist Warns

By Mary Rettig
June 1, 2006
(AgapePress) - A child and family psychologist for Focus on the Family (http://www.family.org/) says it is troubling that. According to one study, today's parents seem to believe the television and other media can be a good babysitter for very young children.

Focus on the Family's Dr. Bill Maier says a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study (http://www.kff.org/entmedia/entmedia052406pkg.cfm) shows parents sometimes rely on media to occupy their infant and toddler children while the adults do other chores. However, he points out, child health experts have warned that parents of children within that age range against exposing them to TV this early.

"The American Academy of Pediatrics came out with a very strong recommendation about two years ago, telling American parents that children under two should not be exposed to any sort of television, Maier notes, "and yet, if you look at the Kaiser Foundation report, 61 percent of babies one year or younger watch TV, in a typical day, an average of an hour and 20 minutes."

more....... http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/12006f.asp

[A.Rachel]

:rolleyes

As long as the content is acceptable, a couple hours a day won't hurt the kids.

We grew up in the days of Sesame Street, Mr. Roger's, The Electric Company, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Tom and Jerry, The Jetson's, The Flintstones, The Superheros (SuperMan, Wonder Woman, Batman, etc...), the Incredible Hulk, Star Trek, The 3 Stooges, The Bionic Man, Mork & Mindy, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, and the list goes on and on.


Yet we are okay.

Last I checked I was not skulking around like a social miscreant.


But back in the 70's there was not so much violence and sexuality on TV. That is why I said as long as the content is acceptable.


If the content is UNacceptable, then ANY amount of time for a child to view it is damaging.


But if the content is acceptable, then let the kids watch some TV for goodness sake ........ we did when we were kids!





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[Dana67]

Yep! I remember Saturday mornings were all about sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons and singing along to Schoolhouse Rock in between!

C'mon everybody... "I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill..." :-)

[Proudmommy]

I knew a family that would put there newborn in front of the t.v. to placate him for hours during the day. :sigh

[gene194955]

When I grew up, we had TV one hour per weekday. Dad usually decided what the family would watch then. It was between 8-9pm. At 9pm, Mom brought out the bible and read to me and my sister. Dad was not saved.

On Saturday am, we would get to watch cartoons for one hour, so we had to pick carefully which cartoons we watched. Saturday evening, Dad always watched Lawrence Welk and that was what we watched. Then we would take our Saturday night bath in the wash tub in the living room.

Sunday, there was no TV. Period. According to our church, this was a sin. The Pastor always came for Sunday dinner once every two months. The uncles always came over every Sunday. My sister and I turned out alright. We played Old Maid, Sorry, Battleship, Checkers, Chinese Checkers, and Monopoly as a family and did not need the TV.

We were forced to entertain ourselves during our idle time. Mom dreaded when I went to play because it meant - mudtime and cars.

[A.Rachel]

Sunday, there was no TV. Period. According to our church, this was a sin.


Thou shalt not watch TV on Sunday. :freaked I think that is in the new revised edition of the Bible. :B:




:D:




.

[A.Rachel]

Yep! I remember Saturday mornings were all about sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons and singing along to Schoolhouse Rock in between!


:nod

Yes! We would sit in front of the TV on Saturday mornings with our cereal bowls and eat breakfast while watching cartoons! :lol We didn't want to miss a single one! :D:

From 7:00 AM until Noon every Saturday was cartoon time.




C'mon everybody... "I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill..." :-)


... and I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.... :B:


http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:Jid4ML_kdQqX-M:safevideo.com/images/justabill.jpg http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:eT51rl5qKIN5eM:www.pullmyblog.com/archives/images/2005/schoolhouserock.jpg




.

[*little lamb*]

Oh please. :rolleyes There are much worse things than Dora and Blue's Clues.



If the content is UNacceptable, then ANY amount of time for a child to view it is damaging.


But if the content is acceptable, then let the kids watch some TV for goodness sake ........ we did when we were kids!



Exactly.

[GospelGami]

Blessed are those that don't watch TV.
Blessed are those that use netflix.

Seriously, if you want Satan to come into your house give your kids a tv and computer in their own room without restrictions.

Pray that Christian parents will have wisdom in dealing with these issues.

[My Abba's Child]

My computer is hooked up to our cable and, thanks to special software, we're able to watch TV from the computer and record programs onto the computer and then, later, burn them onto DVD discs. We're recording all Bedbug Bible Gang, Discovery Jones, and certain other shows and collecting them on DVDs for when our little guy gets interested in watching. Our two older guys are just gonna have to learn to like Little House on the Prairie or find something else to do. :lol You can't even watch decent shows on TV these days because they're interrupted by nearly soft-core porn every 10 minutes or so! :mad

Cartoons STINK these days, there are so many cartoons that the boys aren't allowed to watch that sometimes they can't watch TV at all because every channel has something that's on the uh-uh list (and, I've explained why and they agree with me... for now anyway... they're not teenagers yet. hehe).

In His love,

[My Abba's Child]

Blessed are those that don't watch TV.
Blessed are those that use netflix.

Seriously, if you want Satan to come into your house give your kids a tv and computer in their own room without restrictions.

Pray that Christian parents will have wisdom in dealing with these issues.

It so reminds me of that verse... For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Wow... doesn't that sound SO much like TV today?? All the talk shows, psychology shows, and the previous verse:

holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
sounds VERY much like a lot of the TV evangelists!

and this:
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
sounds very much like the examples our kids see on a lot of the TV shows, even children's programming! But ESPECIALLY in the commercials in-between... even during "good" shows! It's bad and it's not getting any better... it's getting WORSE, just as the Bible predicted. :(:

In His love,

P.S. Thank GOODNESS for blueletterbible.org for helping me find those verses!! :D:

[4everHis]

There is a difference between allowing a 1,2 or 3 yr old to watch tv for hours at a time and allowing them to watch a movie like finding Nemo.

Too much tv is too much tv even for adults.

Common sense tells us that too much tv or usuing it as a baby sitter is wrong.

BUt when we want some time, we plop the baby in front of the tv.
We've all done it. It's not the best thing for the child.
That's life in 2006.