Nope, It’s not called Television Programming for no reason.
MY daughter also watches the tv. but the rhymes or baby songs. when she watch them she would be very still as if she is not there. she first listen and try to say those she heard.
by this way she improved a lot.
Younger dd is 17 months & has not even watched one tv show. However I just rented Baby Signing Times from the library & am planning to let her watch it.
My 5 yo watches a couple of programs a week, even cartoons sometimes - mostly Daddy allows the cartoons - not Mommy!
I think tv is ok in moderation.
I used to allow my kids to watch when they wanted but now I will only let them watch educational shows (normally in french) and no more than 2 per day because my daughter was almost addicted to the dumb thing. she allways wanted to watch it. it just scared me and so that is when I revised our tv viewing.
no tv for muse after i read this study
It’s Official:
TV Linked to Attention Deficit
babies and toddlers parked in front of the TV have a much higher risk of developing ADHD by age 7, a new study shows
by Jean Lotus
A study from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that watching videos as a toddler may lead to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD, also called ADD in UK) in later life.
TV watching “rewires” an infant’s brain, says Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis lead researcher and director of the Child Health Institute at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle, Wash. The damage shows up at age 7 when children have difficulty paying attention in school.
“In contrast to the way real life unfolds and is experienced by young children, the pace of TV is greatly sped up.” says Christakis. His research appears in the April 2004 issue of Pediatrics. Quick scene shifts of video images become “normal,” to a baby “when in fact, it’s decidedly not normal or natural.” Christakis says. Exposing a baby’s developing brain to videos may overstimulate it, causing permanent changes in developing neural pathways.
“Also in question is whether the insistent noise of television in the home may interfere with the development of ‘inner speech’ by which a child learns to think through problems and plans and restrain impulsive responding,” wrote Jane Healy, psychologist and child brain expert in the magazine’s commentary.
Babies brains grow rapidly
Even a child playing with its own fingers has the neural patterning that comes from bending, flexing, stretching and grasping. Scientists tell us that the brain develops in completely unique ways between birth and three years. As a kiddie viddie baby sits “mesmerized”, neural paths are not being created. This is crucial brain development that stops by age three.
“You don’t want to think that something as innocent as half-an-hour’s peace and quiet could reduce your kid’s chances later in life,” says Claire Eaton, 27-year-old mother from Lewisham, Australia.
Setting up baby for failure in school
Are parents who use infant videos such as “Baby Einstein” and “Teletubbies” putting their child at risk for a lifetime of Special Ed classes, school “behavioral therapy” and Ritalin?
In the study of more than 2,000 children, Christakis found that for every hour watched at age one and age three, the children had almost a ten percent higher chance of developing attention problems that could be diagnosed as ADHD by age 7. A toddler watching three hours of infant television daily had nearly a 30 percent higher chance of having attention problems in school.
Infant videos: They wouldn’t sell them if they were dangerous --Would they?
An explosion of kidvids for the bouncy chair set has hit the market. These include Baby Einstein, Baby Mozart, So Smart etc. TV shows, such as Teletubbies, aim at 18-month-old toddlers. These videos are peddled as “educational tools” to “give your baby a head start.” The truth is, they are a video-tether that keeps baby out from underfoot.
“Max is learning German right now from a video”
Parents take away crucial life experiences from their child every time they pop in Baby Einstein. But they do love how it takes the baby out of their hair for awhile Listen to what parents say in testimonials about infant videos:
“I love spending time with my boy but let’s face it, there are times when you just have to have 10 minutes or so to yourself so that you can wash the dishes or do laundry; that’s when you pop this video in. It’s 25 minutes of entertainment that holds the attention of even very young children. ,” (son 10 months) Chris Hudson from San Antonio, TX.
There are times I rewind it and play it again and again until I get the dishes done and order restored. My son is captivated (and hopefully learning something). Mom I n Connecticut
The only thing I wish is that the videos were longer than 30min. Melissa Perruzi, Clinton Mississippi
(From Baby Eisntein reviews on Amazon.com).
Big problem for little people
Twenty-six percent of US children younger than age two have TV in their bedrooms - often watched from the crib, and 36 percent of families leave the TV on almost all of the time, even when no one is watching, according to a 2000 Kaiser Family Foundation study.
Don’t put your child at risk!
The good news is, infants and toddlers don’t need television to distract them. Humans raised children for 50,000 years before television sets and you can do it too. Your children can learn to entertain themselves or play with your supervision.
“When one-year olds are playing with a toy, they can explore it, poke at it, drop it,” says Yale University Television Researcher Dorothy Singer. “They’re learning about space, about sound, and they’re developing sense of competence. Watching a TV show just doesn’t provide the same sensory experience.”
Leaving a child alone with the TV is never a good idea.
“Would you entrust you toddler into the care of a baby sitter, even for a few minutes, who cannot hear or see your child?” writes Nancy Hall of Yale University’s Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy. “Would you leave your child in an environment that encourages passivity, limits creativity and results in increased aggressive behavior? Many 1-year-olds are spending time regularly with just such a baby sitter: the television set.”
What is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?
ADHD affects 12 percent of US school children and has increased dramatically over the past 50 years. Studies show ADHD increased with the introduction of children’s television in the 1950s and then spiked higher in the mid 1980s when VCRs and home video became commonplace. Although the condition is known to be genetic, scientists have noted its rapid spread throughout every social class of children, and guessed that there could be an environmental cause. TV watching is a cause, this study shows.
How much TV should I let my baby watch?
No child under age two should watch television at all, the Academy of American Pediatrics advised in 1998. Doctors blame TV for increasing aggression and obesity in children, now they add ADHD risk to early TV use.
Thanks for sharing! Karma to you!
My boys are literally glued to the TV and loved to watch the cartoons that we bought for them on DVD.
But after reading this post by tatianna, think it’s time to stop.
Anyone has any idea what I can do with my boys (aged 6 and 8)? They do have short attention span, and are quite ‘violent’ in a sort of way. I’ve thought that they were boys, and it was their nature to be sort-of aggressive.
If anyone is interested I am selling my copy of YBCR your baby can read on DVD I have all 5 DVDs and my kids have graduated from them so if you are interested please let em know and I will sell them to you
Hi, I allow my girls to watch the television when I need the ‘time off’.
But I would limit the amount of them they spend staring into the box and the programs are limited to educations vcds or cartoon dvds which I’ve screened through.
I will not allow them to watch anything that has sexual or violence contents in them.
Did you all see the FAQs on BrillBaby?
My DD watches YBCR, Signing Time, TweedleWink and Little Pim (a language program) - not every day. She sometimes watches 10-15 mins of Baby First on terrestrial, which is just for fun. It all adds up to half an hour to an hour a day.
I was originally going to stick to half an hour a day, but turns out I’m not that strict. As long as I see my DD is interested or enjoying herself, I’m happy for her to keep watching. 
It depends on the age of the baby though. Actually it’s pretty easy to gauge because when you show something like YBCR to a baby of 6 months or younger, their attention tends to wander after about 10 mins.
Tatianna - thanks for the info - I always knew a lot of tv wasn’t good but I see I am going to have to do a little more reading! Karma to you.
My daughter does watch a few DVDs - would like to get YBCR for her, but for now the DVDs I am showing are available locally and reasonably educational. (I am happy with the content and it seems to follow what nhockaday said) She does not watch regular TV as I do not think any of the programmes shown in this country are suitable. I am always present when she watches the DVDs, but must admit that I do see this as a little time off for me - I am more likely to put them on when my daughter has woken at 05:00am and won’t go back to sleep than I am to show them in the middle of the day when I have more energy.
Today after going to the beach I also put a DVD on as I figured we all deserved a bit of quiet time break after running around on the beach and expending a lot of energy, but my daughter is starting to ask for the DVDs a little more than I feel happy with and so I plan on decreasing her viewing further.
here are some more studies
by posting this i am not trying to say that watching t.v will ruin your child
my best friend’s son learned to read books before 2 by watching ybcr dvds
we don’t let our little girl watch any t.v. but i think it is a personal choice
The average American child watches about four hours of television a day [Source: AAP], while 20 percent of children under 2 have televisions in their rooms. Among babies 3 months old and younger, 40 percent watch TV, with the percentage increasing significantly for children age 2 and younger [Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer]. A study in 2003 found that children 6 months to 6 years old spend an average of two hours a day dealing with “screen media” like televisions, computers and video games [Source: CBS News]. The study also revealed a correlation between time spent watching television and difficulty reading.
Many of these studies have led doctors, educators and other experts to recommend curbing a child’s TV consumption. The campaign received another shot in the arm when a study released in early August 2007 showed that baby-oriented video programs like “Baby Einstein” and “Brainy Baby” may harm child development. These videos, which are widely available on VHS and DVD, contain little dialogue, instead relying on juxtaposed images that frequently aren’t related to one another or are difficult to explain. (The study cites lava lamps as one example of an image or concept that’s hard to explain to a baby.) But the videos are tremendously popular: The “Baby Einstein” series has earned more than $500 million in revenue [Source: Boston Globe] and Disney purchased the company in 2001 [Source: Denver Post].
Many parents say that they use these videos like babysitters, turning on a “Baby Einstein” DVD for their children so that mom and dad can clean up the house, prepare dinner or take care of other chores. But the problem, researchers say, is that these videos don’t provide the benefits they claim, and they may even do harm.
The problem lies not only in the videos’ content – little dialogue or interactivity and rapidly changing images – but also with how babies’ brains develop. A child’s brain is very sensitive before age 2. It’s still developing neural connections and growing in size. Because of this sensitivity, it’s important for babies to have a lot of interactive stimulation to learn and develop. The researchers contend that the videos don’t provide this stimulation.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Pediatrics, looked at 1,000 families, examining children who were 8 months to 16 months old. Thirty-two percent of children surveyed watched the videos, 17 percent of them for at least an hour a day. To determine how programs like “Baby Einstein” affected development, they focused on vocabulary. On average, for every hour a day a child watched these programs he or she knew six to eight fewer words compared to children of the same age. Children who were 17 months to 24 months old didn’t seem affected by the program in any way.
The head of the study, Frederick Zimmerman of the University of Washington, said that “there is no clear evidence of a benefit coming from baby DVDs and videos, and there is some suggestion of harm” [Source: Forbes].
PARIS - France’s broadcast authority has banned French channels from airing TV shows aimed at children under 3 years old, to shield them from developmental risks it says television viewing poses at that age.
The High Audiovisual Council, in a ruling published Wednesday, said it wanted to “protect children under 3 from the effects of television.”
Parents ‘suckered in’ to educational value: pediatrician
There is no evidence that infants enjoy or benefit from educational or entertainment programming, Shea said. “It’s not credible, in my opinion, but it’s really good marketing and parents have been suckered in.”
For children under three, the best ways to help develop their brain is by talking, reading and playing with them — activities that are less passive than watching TV, she suggested.
Scott Rose of Halifax said he bought a Baby Einstein DVD for his 13-month-old daughter, Sienna, thinking it would be educational for her.
Rose said Sienna likes the colours and sounds on the DVD, and that he believes it is helping her make associations with objects around her. He also makes sure she enjoys lots of real-life play time to help her development as well.
Viewing tied to learning problems in teens
The detrimental effects of TV time on learning may be long lasting, a second study appearing in the same issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests.
Jeffrey Johnson of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and his team found teens who watched three to four hours of TV a day were more likely to show attention or learning problems and were less likely to earn a degree.
At age 14, 33 per cent of teens from the 678 families surveyed reported watching three or more hours a day.
The researchers found TV time was linked to a higher risk of:
* Frequent attention difficulties.
* Frequent failure to complete homework.
* Frequent boredom at school.
* Failure to complete high school.
* Poor grades.
* Academic failure at the post-secondary level.
Results were the same regardless of socio-economic status.
The findings “suggest that by encouraging youths to spend less than three hours per day watching television, parents, teachers and health-care professionals may be able to help reduce the likelihood that at-risk adolescents will develop persistent attention and learning difficulties,” the study’s authors concluded.
It could be that TV shortens teens’ attention spans, and future studies should look at whether promoting other activities like athletics, music or arts helps reduce the risk of learning problems, they added.
Here is some reading material for everyone
http://www.seattlechildrens.org/home/pdf/early_television_and_attentional_problems.pdf
I let my baby watch an educational video its about 20minutes but not everyday she likes the animals and songs at the time, I think it’s a personal choice but we have to take care of what they are watching unfortunately most of the programs in open and close television are not allowed for the little ones, too much violence, adult films, insolent cartoons and other non apropriate stuff that influences children’s behavior and makes the parent work useless, lets try to vary children’s activities so you don’t have to let them time to be sitting in front of the fool box.
We do allow our son to watch TV. Mostly disney, educational or Noggin. Which is an educational tv station. Most time he doesn’t watch but a few minutes of it and then gets down to play with toys. So I guess he isn’t even “watching” it very much.
My 25 months old daughter has been allowed to watch TV, mostly PBS, and Backyardigans. After a lot of research and learning about the negative effects it can have on your child, I have minimized to weekends and only 30 minutes. By doing that I can see changes in her already. Before she could easily watch TV for 2 hours straight. Now she is bored after 10 minutes. Turning off the TV does not only helps your child, but also gives your family a opportunity to spend some quality time together. So turn off the TV everyone, and bring out the board games for some family fun!!!
I let my son watch tv for 30 min everyday except weekends…nothing on weekends
He usually watches noggin or any such educational channel
The post says watch tv …
I let her watch educational programmes like YBCR. Initially once a day from 10mth i did not follow their schedule. I just let her watch starter for 2 weeks then add another 1 by the 3rd week and add another 1 by the 6th week and only 1 dvd a day … at around evening time before dinner …
Recently about 1-2 mth ago i started playing memory magic and recently wink to learn english during lunch. Some flashing words are quite repetitive since there wil be cross overs among the dvds. Now she learns quite fast she gets bored easily if its the same old dvd. SO i am forced to put up new dvds to keep her attention … i think she is tired of learning the same old things …
The point about TV (as in regular broadcast TV programs) being bad is it tells you the story with lots of graphics… so the child expects to want things fast, colourful, and read to him or her. They want it graphic and full of impact. What results is when they grow up they can only absorb materials only if it has the same intensity as a tv program, or a dvd movie. Unfortuantely in the real world its still the same old, books and writing, the slow approach … to learning in school … so kids who watch lots of movies or tvs for that matter … would lose attention quickly if the subject or lesson isn’t taught as fast or colourful enough … it lost that excitement … hence why they classify as ADD and sometimes ADHD … However for the same child if you play a superb impactful and highly educational DVD … he would be able to absorb quickly than those compared to the traditional route …
But because such programs are limited and teachers maybe make redundent and hence lots of unemloyment … plus no proper guidance such approach is less encouraged … … broadcast tv content also cannot be controlled and neither can you offset the advertisement which we know can sometimes be quite offensive in the name of art or marketing …
qn is of course would education or documentray tv catch up … of course different baby’s different ability best to observe first … and decide which approach best suits your child