Children watching TV – “Good”, “Bad”, or “It depends”?

Children watching TV – “Good”, “Bad”, or “It depends”?

The debate on positives and negatives - mostly the latter - about television watching by children less than five years old has been going on for a long time. Should young children watch any TV at all? How much TV watching is ok for kids? These are common discussion topics.
• The American Association of Pediatrics says children under 2 shouldn't watch TV at all, and that older kids should watch no more than two hours a day.
• But a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that 68 percent of American children under the age of 2 watch TV or videos daily.
• Literacy Trust of UK publishes research findings on pros and cons of TV watching habits among children.
Most of the time, we parents hear about these studies and guidelines from popular press articles like these:
• Children's progress 'hit by TV'
(But the 2-5 group may benefit from educational TV)
• TV 'may stunt toddlers' learning'
(Less than half hour of TV for three year olds recommended)
• Good news, bad news for tube-watching tots
(Content is the key)
• Television and ADHD
(Link between TV watching and lack of focus)

What is our take on this topic?

First, two observations:
• Like most social science research, there are far too many challenges in these studies. It is too difficult to isolate multiple factors. Hence, academic studies give us useful nuggets but can’t really be treated as conclusive.
• Parent’s common sense, keeping an open mind and learning by observing what works and what doesn’t with their own children – these are as powerful tools as ever to answer such questions. In our opinion, these are as important as academic research, if not more.

Second, for the 2-5 years age group, based on our own experience and common sense, this is what we have to say:
• Bad part of too much TV watching is that it is a passive activity. It can takes time away from being physically active. So important to watch out for this effect, particularly if the child is tends to be not so active or shows early signs of obesity. We promote the ad council awareness program on childhood obesity through fun video ads like this (and more). See also our previous post on childhood obesity dangers.
• Another bad aspect of too much TV is potentially time taken away from social interaction. Hence, this is particularly important for children not having a regular outlet for interaction with other children – in child care or playgroup settings, for example.
• Children, left to themselves, get bored watching TV beyond a point and switch to doing something else – playing with real toys, for example. When you see that happening naturally and within reasonable time, there should be no reason to worry.
• “Interest and Stimulation work better than Rules, Discipline or Fear”. If you want to distract your child away from TV, it is a good idea to come up with something more interesting to do at that time.
• Do you take time to be with your child when your child watches TV? This is so important. This is the only way you can figure out what works and what doesn’t for your child.
• Children’s TV programs are often more about fantasy than reality. But that is not a bad thing. Imagination is their strongest asset. As Albert Einstein said – “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Einstein was famous for his thought experiments.
• Imagination is also one of the best tools of building knowledge. As children didn’t we learn most of our early vocabulary and concepts in the course of listening to stories or playing games?
• TV watching can take time away from reading and impair literacy. However, choosing programs with text (e.g., subtitles or captions), blending the watching with occasional spelling questions can easily overcome this issue to some extent.
• Playing with computers is also a physically passive activity like TV watching. However, it also stimulates a child’s mind. There is some interactivity involved.
• It is a very good idea to blend something with TV watching to make it slightly more interactive. Questions and answers about the content during TV watching is a great fun exercise for parents to see how a child’s mind works.
• Finally, DVR is a great tool. If you find really compelling content that fires your child’s imagination and has good learning content, program it for repeat watching. We find it a great learning device.

Here are a few questions to social scientists (and to all of us).
Could it be that the one or more of the following are the real problems?
• Parents don’t have time or interest to be with children when they watch TV.
• Adult habits of TV watching (quantity, quality and compulsiveness) in the household.
• The quality of content and the TV watching environment – over which parents are not exercising control.
• Where we find link between children’s excessive TV watching and subsequent lag in reading, there is also a link between excessive adult TV watching and lack of interest in reading or books in the household.

We admit that we are much less sure about the applicability our common sense approach for children less than two years old. We would like to refer our readers to these interesting books in doodledays book corner that discuss this topic further.

Bottom-line: In our opinion, the answer is “It depends”.
Imagination, Imitation, Involvement, Repetition, Recognition – are the key elements of childhood learning. Judicious use of all media – including TV, Video, DVR, Computers – can play a role in this.

“Childcare Center” vs. “Daycare Center”: Taking care of the child or the day?

Linda MacConnachie, owner of two Sunshine Station preschools in North Carolina, wrote to us:

Please help us change the image of our industry by replacing the word "day care" with “child development centers” or “child care centers”.

As we like to say, we are not taking care of the DAY, we are taking care of the CHILD.

Indeed she has a strong point.

Doodledays is about childcare. We did wrestle with this issue. Should we use “childcare center” or “childcare provider” consistently? Avoid the term “daycare” or “daycare center” altogether?

The American Heritage® Dictionary defines the two terms as below:

child-care or child·care
adj. Of, relating to, or providing care for children, especially preschoolers: a child-care center; child-care professionals.

day·care or day care
n. Provision of daytime training, supervision, recreation, and often medical services for children of preschool age, for the disabled, or for the elderly.

Clearly, “childcare” is a more precise term than “daycare”.

The term daycare somehow connotes a solution to an inconvenience. Daycare = Paying someone to take care of your child during the day because of practical reasons.

On the other hand, the term childcare puts the focus on caring for the child.

As Linda put it – it is about taking care of the CHILD not DAY.

So why did we still use the term daycare on many pages?

Word of mouth and search engine results are our two predominant means of reaching our audience. For a young website like doodledays.com, it is important to get noticed by search engines like Google. Matching the phrases people are searching for to the language on our site was an important consideration.

While childcare topics are universal, our initial focus has been on the US region. We were surprised to find a big difference in search usage for different phrases within US and outside. Most people in the US use “daycare” or “day care” as the search phrases rather than “childcare” or “child care”. Interestingly, the statistics are reversed for non-US searches!

For Google search usage indication, see:

1. “Childcare”: US and Canada at the bottom two of the seven ranked countries searching with “childcare” as Google search keyword.
2. “Child care”: Australia ranks first followed by Canada and US for “child care” - but there is significant gap in usage.
3. “Daycare”: Canada and US are top two and most predominant in usage in search.
4. “Day care”: US, Australia and Canada top the search usage.

So we did compromise.

We will strive to change the usage from ‘daycare’ to ‘childcare’. Even a change in usage could help reset our expectations about the service.

After all, doodledays is all about childcare matters.

Help us by spreading the word on doodledays.com.

Research shows overweight toddlers and those NOT in daycare have higher risk of iron deficiency.

This featured report on doodledays home page today is about recent research on iron deficiency among toddlers. Iron deficiency can lead to anemia, muscle and bone marrow impairments. It is also linked with learning development. Obviously, it is important to prevent it.

Based on a nation-wide sample of 1,641 toddlers, the recent study by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers found that:

• One out of five toddlers who are overweight has iron deficiency. In comparison, only one out of fourteen normal-weight toddlers has it.
• One out of ten toddlers not in day care had iron deficiency. In comparison, only one out of twenty toddlers enrolled in day cares had it.

The study does not explain the discrepancy between kids in day care versus kids at home.

We know that balanced diet habits help prevent iron deficiency. If your child is not weaned off bottle at the right time, the risk of diet imbalance is higher. This is because of over-consumption of milk and juices at the expense of foods with iron.

Many day care centers limit milk feedings. May be to protect against the risk of feeding spoiled milk? Could it be that day care center policies are more consistent with weaning the babies off bottle at the right age? Could this be the explanation?

Raising your child at home full time, in a home based care provider setting or enrolling in a day care center is a personal decision. But we all should be aware of iron deficiency and take precautions to avoid it. Talking to your pediatrician about iron levels, nutrition, right time to wean babies off bottles, appropriateness of iron supplements, etc. is a good idea.

Childhood obesity is the other factor. Balanced diet and regular physical activities are the obvious prevention measures. Please visit the childhood obesity awareness page on doodledays. The videos are fun (for both kids and parents)!

Daycare costs

For a state-by-state comparison of average annual daycare costs, see this page on doodledays.com (data courtesy www.naccrra.org).

The NACCRRA also has following interesting statistics:

• More than 6 in 10 children under 5 in the US are in some type of childcare arrangement every week.
• On average, the children under age 5 of working mothers spend 36 hours a week in child care.
• 57% of all mothers return to work within the first six months of giving birth and 65% do so within one year.
• 39 states do not require teachers in child care centers to undergo training before working in a class room.
• Daycare expenses constitute 25% of family income for families below poverty level. For single parent families, the percentage of family income spent on childcare can be very significant.
• A study of interactions concluded that the words spoken by primary caregivers to children in their early years account for 59 percent of the cognitive accomplishments of preschool-age children.

Childcare matters. What can parents do to make sure that their children get the best care for the dollars spent on childcare? Of what use is careful selection of your childcare provider if you don’t follow up regularly to keep a pulse on the quality of your childcare?

Doodledays was born out of our desire to make the best use of Internet for addressing these issues.

• Using doodle-diary, you can track every month how you feel about the service of late.
• Using doodle-connect, you can promptly and conveniently communicate with your provider (if the provider has also signed up) to address your concerns or provide positive feedback.
• Using doodle-board, you can rate and review your current or previous daycare.

Take a tour of www.doodledays.com. Tell us what you think. Spread the word. Become a member. It is free resource for parents.

doodledays.com

Doodledays is our term for the first five years of your child. These are exciting and sometimes exhausting days. Days filled with fun, creativity, discovery, learning… and also anxiety, chores, rush, expenses….

As parents of toddler twins we often looked for resources on Internet that we could use. We found lots of useful things – but not any one particular site. We decided to build one. And thus doodledays.com was born.

Many friends and strangers gave us feedback on the first beta release. Thank you all. Your comments, suggestions, critique are always welcome.

Happy doodledays to you!