Author Topic: Television  (Read 4173 times)

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Offline Erin M

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Re: Television
« Reply #15 on: May 08, 2006, 19:01:36 pm »
Katie found the on/off button on the Ocean Wonders aquarium pretty early on - I want to say 4ish months, but that seems too early -- maybe 6?  She used to wake up in the middle of the night and turn the thing on and go back to sleep - it was so funny to hear it over the monitor.  We had to take it out of the crib for a bit once she started rolling as she kept smacking her head on it (ouch!), but now it's back in again. 

Offline Maman_d'Adrien

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Re: Television
« Reply #16 on: May 13, 2006, 14:13:52 pm »
Hi

I have read the original scientific paper that finds a relationship between amount of TV watched by 1 year old and 3 year old babies and their "tendency" for ADHD  once they are in school. I am a biologist so I understand the methods, etc... It was important to me to read the first hand account so I would know if this is a scare or real. Unfortunately after reading it I would say it is real  :( . Of course the scientists do not claim that the hours of TV watched causes adhd, what they claim is that every hour of TV watched in a day raises the probability of having adhd by 10% (on average). The difference between these two claims are that one assumes that the relationship they see means that one causes the other, the second claim doesn't. For example, some other scientists looked at that result and said "maybe adhd-prone kids are more fascinated by TV in the first place so the cause of TV watching is adhd and not the reverse", but most scientists agree that it is probably the opposite that is going on. In any case, the suggestion not to let babies under 2 watch TV is a "precaution" one, a  "Better safe than sorry" approach. The exact reason why TV would cause adhd is not know, but it has been suggested that the rewards center in the brain for focusing on one thing are very active in young babies, which would help them to give a lot of attention to their parents talking and acting, which is how they learn to talk and do everything. TV would highjack these attention centers in the brain because of fast moving images, etc, and the brain would receive a huge amount of reward for being very attentive (to something "artificial" like TV) such that later, paying attention to a teacher or slow moving things like reading a book would not give enough rewards to the brain to stay focused (that is the "brain rewiring" hypothesis somebody else was talking about in another post).
Nadia

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Offline Marisa's Mom

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Re: Television
« Reply #17 on: May 13, 2006, 16:17:16 pm »
Does it help to balance it out with the availability of MORE books?  Would that sort of help counteract the effects of TV?
About half of DD's "toys" are books and magazines, and she spends quite a bit of time flipping through them throughout the day.

Marie


Offline Spectra

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Re: Television
« Reply #18 on: May 14, 2006, 02:07:30 am »
Thanks Mamam for all that information, that's awesome!  I guess I have to make sure she doesn't look at it.  Must put blinders on her lol.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2006, 02:13:01 am by Spectra »
Melanie
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Offline maggieruth

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Re: Television
« Reply #19 on: May 14, 2006, 09:04:03 am »
wow, thanks for all that (scary) information!  i feel better about lecturing dh to turn the tv off now!  :)

Offline *Nicola*

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Re: Television
« Reply #20 on: May 14, 2006, 14:28:03 pm »
Hiya guys

I just wanted to post to say that we do have the TV on a fair bit in our house and that Ciara does watch it. 

Sometimes she will choose to watch a whole programme (10-15 mins) of the wiggles, postman pat, barney or whatever.  Othertimes she will ignore the TV and play with her toys, read books, sing with us or whatever.  Othertimes she will play away and occasionally glance at the TV.  She is just as happy and content playing with toys, playing outside, reading books, threading, drawing etc etc as she is watching a programme.  She will sometimes ask if she can watch a dvd or programme and that is fine by me.  She doesn't tanturm to have her programmes on and doesn't bat an eyelid if I have the news on. 

In my opinion this is ok and I choose not to stop her watching TV.  Having said that, I would NEVER allow her to sit staring at the TV all day.  Ciara is almost 3, and I realise that this is different for small babies.

Anyway ... I just wanted to post our view, whilst being mindful of the advice/research above x
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