Babies and toddlers need a good talking to, not TV

By Rita Rubin Monday, May 5, 2008

Babies and toddlers need a good talking to, not TV
Who among us hasn't at one time or another plopped a kid down in front of the TV so we could finish some task?

You might rationalize that educational programs or videos are good for them, but a new NIH-funded study suggests that's not necessarily true with very young children, especially if you're not watching with them.

The new study, which focused on 154 pairs of low-income mothers and babies, found that the infants were placed in front of a TV for an average of two hours in every 24-hour period. Half of the time, a program not intended for young children was on the TV, and very little of the programming was specifically directed toward young infants, the researchers write in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

This is not that unusual, the authors note, citing a Kaiser Family Foundation study that found nearly two-thirds of infants and children under age 2 spend an average of an hour and 20 minutes in front of the TV every day. And, the authors of the new study write, there's limited evidence that kids under age 2 benefit even from TV shows or videos or DVDs with educational content. Findings about educational program's effect on infants' language development have been mixed, the authors say, leading me to wonder about all those Baby Einstein products.

The problem is that time spent in front of a TV might cut into time interacting with parents, which can have a "substantial effect" on development in babies and young children. And in the new studies, the moms interacted with their babies while watching fewer than a quarter of the TV programs.

Bottom line: Parents should heed the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation that kids under age 2 shouldn't sit in front of a TV (one recent study linked TV-watching in infancy to childhood obesity). The researchers acknowledged it be difficult for many families to keep the little ones away from the tube. So they suggest parents at least stick with educational programs--not because tots are necessarily going to get anything out of them, but because moms in the study were more likely to interact with kids when educational shows were airing.

Can I see a show of hands of parents who've ever used TV to babysit?

Posted at 06:29 PM/ET, May 05, 2008 in In your head, Kids' health,