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18-9-2009 - Television -- The Electronic Pacifier

My mood while writing this blog: ...

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In my junior year of college, I came home for the summer to study for my GRE and MCAT. I also volunteered at the local Children's Hospital, and they placed me at a daycare run by the Rotary Club. There, I got to work with developmentally delayed children. It was a very eye-opening experience.

My mom was a very hands-on type of person. She didn't like to buy me a lot of electronic doo-dads and toys that required batteries. She liked to take me places and show me things, get me to learn about things by doing. I'm still shocked sometimes when I remember that she let me use a needle and thread when I was only 3 years old. I don't know if I'd trust my own child with a needle and thread at three years of age!!!

But, anyway, when I spent time at this Rotary Club-run daycare, I felt really sorry for the kids there. The women there were paid a flat salary. And it showed. They would plop those kids on the carpet in front of the boob tube, pop a Barney video on, and then go to the kitchen where they'd sit and gossip until 5 PM. It bothered me that the kids were pretty much unsupervised. I would watch as one of the kids would leave the televison and go climb up on the furniture in the playroom, and I'd go running after him to make sure he didn't hurt himself. There was a little girl with hydrocephalus who had motor delay, and they would just leave her on her back in the living room. Needless to say, she had plagiocephaly. So I'd put her on her belly and watch her reach for things, and prompt her to play with them. By the time I left that volunteer position, she had learned to sit up and had much improved upper body strength.

None of those kids paid any attention to the damn Barney video.

In fact, studies have shown that exposing kids to television shows, even Baby Einstein and Sesame Street, at ages under 2 years can actually promote speech delay. Is it any wonder? Speech is interactive. It involves facial responses and other physical as well as vocal cues. What's interactive about watching a stupid purple dinosaur hopping around?

When my husband and I were first dating, I'd go over to his place a lot. He always had the television on. He claimed he just liked to have the background noise, and that he wasn't really watching. But he was. He'd occasionally comment about a show that was on. He knew all the episodes of "Friends" and "Frasier" and Lord knows what else.

I myself was a television illiterate, and had been for some time. You see, my parents stopped buying cable when I was about 12. We had no interest in watching news repeat itself every 12 hours. There weren't any entertaining shows anymore (after they cancelled "Moonlighting"!!). And frankly, my dad was sick of paying money for the privilege of watching junk.

It didn't bother me. If we watched TV, we'd sometimes watch what we could get via antenna, and that was more than enough entertainment.

If I went to visit friends, I noticed that they usually had a television on ALL THE TIME. It was always playing in the background. Sort of a white noise, but more irritating. I never understood the reason why people needed this kind of irritating white noise. One of my roommates in college was adamant about always having the television on. Sometimes she'd hole herself up in our dorm room, with bags of snacks and just sit there and watch anything that came on. I think she dropped out of college in her junior year. I don't know if the TV contributed to it, but I honestly don't think it helped.

So, when my husband and I got married, and he moved in with me, he was disturbed by the fact that I did not have cable or satellite. However, he was open to living without television, and it turned out, he didn't mind either after a while.

In fact, after he got a job at a TV station, where he did nothing but watch television, he would come home and exclaim, "I am so glad we don't have a TV!"

Currently, we still don't watch regular TV. We watch some shows sometimes, but via our computers. Some of the shows I watched include "Heroes" (because a friend said I just *HAD* to see this show) which was okay in the first season, but I kind of became disinterested after a while, "Jericho" (again because a friend suggested it) which held my interest about as long as "Heroes" did, and "Hell's Kitchen" (because my husband and I love food!).

Other than that, we watch DVD's on occasion. Currently, we are going through my husband's WWII documentaries. I normally hate documentaries, but this series is actually really interesting!

Fast-forward to this summer. Husband has now changed his mind. He is thinking we need to have cable, if we are going to have a child. I still don't see a need for it, but I'm willing to give it a try. I'm guessing though, with our finances being tight, we'll pay $90/month for combined DSL and cable, and he'll decide it isn't worth the extra money.

But who knows! Maybe I'll become a convert to the pacifier of the masses.

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1 Comments on Television -- The Electronic Pacifier


Debra - Thursday, 24 Sep
i wouldn't get a tv just for your kids sake. I find that i watch tv much less now. I spend our mornings cleaning, reading and playing cars with my son. Now that he's two, he has the attention span to watch a disney movie and really likes the cars movie. But he'd watch it all the time if he could. So instead, i get him to move around and play- which does more to develop his fine and gross motor skills and develop his brain than watching tv does. I was allowed to watch a bit of tv growing up every day, but it was limited and we were given rain jackets and snow suits on lousy days and told to go outside and play and use our imagination. Given the rising rates of obesity and lack of exercise, links of tv watching to developmental delays and even autism, i'm going to raise my son the way i was raised. Even if I thought it tough growing up, i've realized that my mom knew what she was doing. We spent our time exercising, riding our bikes, playing with neighbourhood kids, reading, and very little time in front of the tv. another book i read recently and really enjoyed:http://www.amazon.com/Three-Martini-Playdate-Practical-Guide-Parenting/dp/0811840549My goal is to be a responsible parent that teaches a child that it's okay to be a child and still have my own life. I'm not a helicopter parent. My son will learn discipline, he will be fed nutritious foods, grow up to take responsibility for his actions and be given a lot of love and cuddles a long the way.