David Elkind’s “The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children” is a great opportunity to explore how young children learn. The focus of his book is about the importance of very young children connecting and understanding how to explore the world around them. While Elkind agrees with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommending that children under the age of 2 should consume “no” screen time, his reasoning it seems is flawed and not remotely in line with the study this recommendation is based on.
His view is that screen time “impedes a child’s ability to develop auditory discrimination skills since such learning as they have achieved will have been from pictures instead of from language.” There is nothing about this potential causal connection in the University of Washington study. Suggesting this is pure conjecture and not rooted in fact. Further, it seems this continual dialogue about the causal effects of screen time for children under the age of 2 mainly is designed as a “scare” tactic and gives parents—especially young mothers—one more reason to feel guilty. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study found that the average child under the age of 2 is watching over two hours of television a day. While I don’t personally recommend this daily diet, there is a difference between “bad, vacuous TV” and “good, engaging TV.”
We believe that with Braincandy we’re breaking the mold and offering extremely high quality, content for very young children that is based on the same area of focus as Elkind’s book—giving children the power to play.
Posted on February 22nd, 2007 by Sam
Filed under: Uncategorized
FYI…April 22nd-27th is TV Turnoff Week. I had heard about this and then did some research. Several companies are offering great family activities to do instead of watching TV. My 2 favorites were Toobeez and Cranium. We are definitely going to play more and watch TV less during that week. It should be an interesting experiment!
Television is always something that needs boundaries–too much isn’t good and I believe non is for us simply not realistic. For us the main thing is that no matter what we’re doing whether it’s watching TV or swimming at the beach, that they are activities we enjoy doing together…
Thanks for your comments!
Sam