More bad news for television: “Television exposure during infancy is associated with language delays and attentional problems,” according to Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
Of particular concern are homes in which the television is on all the time, which amounts to 30% of all households! In these situations, less interaction, critical for infant language development, occur because of the interference of the television.
Christakis and his colleagues studied 329 two-month to four-year-old children and their parents. Children were monitored for two years recording what they heard or said for 12 to 16 hours. Researchers did not calculate whether the children and their parents were actively watching TV or if it was just on in the background during the research. The results, according to Live Science:
Analyses of the recordings revealed that each hour of additional television exposure was linked with a decrease of 770 words (7 percent) the child heard from an adult during the recording session. Hours of television were also associated with a decrease in the number and length of child vocalizations and the back and forth between the child and an adult (called a conversational turn).
A study of 754 kids shows that those who watched television with adult content may become sexually active earlier in adolescence.
The research was done at Children’s Hospital Boston. They tracked kids from age 6 to 18, following what the children watched over the years. When the youngest kids (aged 6-8) watched adult-themed movies and TV, they were a whopping 33 percent more likely to have sex “during early adolescence”.
Yikes!
Children learn from media, and when they watch media with sexual references and innuendos, our research suggests they are more likely to engage in sexual activity earlier in life.
Editor’s note: The following post was originally published on Green and Clean Mom. “Green & Clean Mom can inspire you to try a little harder, be a catalyst for change and to offer you some new tips and news on how to be the green, sexy and sassy mom…I know you are!”
In my local community something is happening that makes me want to jump up, clap for joy and say, “thank goodness”! Children are being encouraged to get outside. Turn off the television and discover green grass, bugs, bond with the trees, smell the fresh air, run and get dirty. It’s an initiative that really shouldn’t have to take place but with television, computers, working parents and technology more children are inside verses exploring the great outdoors. Find out how to locally get involved or start an initiative near you by visiting Getting Kids Outdoors.
The idea is to leave no child inside. I found many helpful tips for parents on a handout given to me at our local health fair and hopefully you can use some of these tips and join in the effort to get our kids off the couch and outside where the rain won’t hurt them and some mud could be fun for everyone!
Limit Screen Time. Designate how often the television can be turned on and stick to it. Avoid using it just for noise. I’m guilty at this. My children love to just have the television on but they’re not watching it. It wastes energy and it’s just noise.
I’ll admit that I totally used to watch TLC’s Jon & Kate Plus Eight. We don’t have cable, but my grandparents do, and what ELSE is there to do when we visit them but watch the Jon & Kate Plus Eight marathon that it seems is always on?
And sure, I really enjoyed the show at first. The little kids were cute, and it was entertaining to spend an hour seeing two adults tearing their hair out trying to complete the simplest of tasks, like grocery shopping, or getting dressed, with six toddlers and two older kids.
And the parents? They were AWESOME! Kate’s obsessive need to dress the kids identically and keep a fastidious house clashing with her husband’s desire to just chill–now that’s entertainment.
I visited my grandpa at Christmas, though, and again for Spring Break, and I was disturbed to see that the tenor of Jon & Kate Plus Eight has really changed over its few seasons. The show has gone from a documentary about how to parent through the hard times, with integrity and an emphasis on maintaining family connections, to a documentary about a couple of stage parents and all the misery they put their unloved and ill-behaved little kids through in order to bring in the cash. Here’s why I think Jon & Kate Plus Eight has become distinctly family-unfriendly, both for me to watch and for Jon and Kate and their children to live through:
This great video has been circulating around the birth-activist regions of the blogosphere recently, since it first aired a few days ago. It’s a television commercial for a bed, and the characters in the commercial are no actors. It’s actual scenes from an actual family, giving birth at home while a peaceful soundtrack plays, and voiceovers talk about the miracle, the specialness, the joy of birth, and the tradition of birthing at home.
There is no fretting about whether or not home birth is safe. There is no screaming and panicking. There is a secure and confident woman with her family by her side, bringing her baby into the world in front of our very eyes.
The objective is to use entertainment content as a vehicle for educating mainstream audiences on topics such as HIV/AIDS and education in the hopes of influencing public views and behaviors.
One of these initiatives, called Get Schooled, is a partnership with Viacom that will weave education-themed story lines into existing shows or create new shows centered on education.
Editor’s Note: This post is a guest contribution by Frank Sesno, Emmy-award winning journalist and former CNN Washington Bureau Chief. ”Planet Forward” is an innovative, viewer-driven program driven by the power of ideas, as citizens make their case for what they think about the nation’s energy future. The show debuts on the web first and then moves to television, in a primetime PBS special on April [...]
Most of us are already familiar with the fun and educational programming provided by PBS. Many of us grew up with Sesame Street and The Reading Rainbow right? Well, I am pleased as punch when I find my kids engrossed in PBS programming because I know they are likely learning while viewing.
Well now PBS is participating in an entertaining, educational, and free Earth Day campaign! This is even better news for an eco conscious parent.
The online content and programming are ADORABLE – and all free – and help instill a love of the environment and eco-conscious values in children and their families. Joining in the campaign is a great way for kids and families to start a dialogue about the importance of preserving the earth, while learning and having fun.
If your child watches more than two hours of television a day, his or her risk for asthma is doubled, according to a study published in the journal Thorax.
The UK study monitored over 3,000 children from birth until nearly twelve years old. Beginning at the age of 3 and a half, researchers questioned parents annually on television viewing habits and symptoms of wheezing.
Those children who watched more than two hours of television a day were twice as likely to have been diagnosed with asthma at age 12 than those children who watched less, prompting the researchers to suggest that “breathing patterns associated with sedentary behavior could lead to developmental changes in the lungs and wheezing illnesses in children“.
Yep, in the fourth quarter of last year, personal TV use was at 151 hours per month, up from 145 hours for each of the last three months in the previous year. That would be about 4 ½ hours per day per person.
American households watch, on average, 8 hours, 18 minutes of TV per day. What the?! Oh my, why are Junior’s grades so awful? Why is he “heavy set”?
More bad news for television: “Television exposure during infancy is associated with language delays and attentional problems,” according to Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
I’ll admit that I totally used to watch TLC’s 
