Friday, April 5, 2013
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Screen Time and Childhood
Fourteen years ago the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a
policy statement addressing children’s screen time that created a media hubbub.
The statement was weak and ineffective. The ruckus was in grand disproportion
to the Academy’s ho-hum recommendation that parents “avoid television for
children under the age of two years.”
It generated no positive results. Screen
time for all children continues to increase. Parents still consider the
television a member of the family. Mobile apps are every parent’s new best
friend.
Parents now assume screen time is an important element in early
childhood development. Only 14% of parents remember their pediatricians giving
any advice about media use, despite the Academy’s 2011 reassertion of their
policy. Pediatricians know parents quit listening to that message more than a
decade ago. Our best educators worry about the influence of unregulated
technology use on the growth of young minds, wonder at the obvious but
under-reported connections between screen time and the deterioration of
attention. They know they cannot hold the attention of children raised on
two-second sound bites.
Children spend an average of five to seven hours every day in
front of a screen. The only activity that occupies more time for children is
sleeping. These same young kids are experiencing speech and language delays,
and chronic attention problems. Literacy is becoming increasingly hard to
achieve, creativity rare. Though there is little research to establish
connections between so many young children’s failure to thrive and their
over-exposure to technologies, the conclusion that screen time is corroding
young minds seems ridiculously obvious to most teachers.
The AAP’s most recent research indicates that a shocking 90% of
children younger than two watch some form of electronic media. By age three,
one third of these kids have televisions in their bedrooms. Modern parents
consider one of the most unpredictably dangerous influences on the lives of
young children to be a peacekeeper, a “safe” activity for their children.
Well-educated, upwardly mobile parents fancy educational
technology for kids. Lower income families use the television as a babysitter.
The New York Times calls this the “app gap.” The Times points out that both
sets of parents are thumbing their noses at the AAP, relying on screens to
occupy their children.
The Mayo Clinic’s available information for parents acknowledges
a lack of definitive research, but links too much screen time to behavioral
problems, irregular sleep, poor academic performance and, most convincingly,
obesity. Most major public health organizations have described obesity in
epidemic terms. Screen time is obviously not the only cause of obesity, but
experts consider it a primary gateway to things like soda pop, sedentary lifestyles
and high-fat snack foods.
The effects of screen time on the health of families are easy to
visualize. They are All American images: An overweight family gathered around
the television, eating separate, high-fat meals, sharing two-liter bottles of
soda. Young children eating finger-foods in their car seats, mesmerized by the
screens attached to their parents’ head rests. Bug-eyed youngsters passing time
on iPads and cell phones loaded with mobile apps.
The AAP, the National Institute of Health and the Mayo Clinic
urge parents to limit and plan screen time, and strongly discourage allowing
children to eat in front of a screen. Do not allow children to have televisions
or computers in their bedrooms, they say. Do not leave the television on
throughout the day. Make choices. Plan outdoor activities. Turn the television
off for a day. Though teachers know parents are not following the AAP
guidelines, they know less screen time for longer would build a healthier
child.
A paltry 10% of parents follow the AAP guidelines. There are
apps available for kids so young they are more inclined to chew the cell phone.
Fishing poles and family meals are Norman Rockwell, retro visions of a time
that may be forever gone. The thought of commuting or eating or falling asleep
without a screen makes most parents shudder.
Teachers do not have spare time and money to sponsor research.
Studies into the effects of screen time on children will probably always be
poorly funded and inherently limited in scope and value. Even the best studies
cannot compare a mature adult with the person she might have become, had she
enjoyed a different upbringing. When a child is diagnosed with hyperactivity or
an attention deficit, parents can get a prescription with relative ease. But
they cannot get a do-over. When an adolescent commits an act of violence, it’s
too late to turn off the video games.
Good parenting has never been easy. Bad parenting has never been
easier. Screen time seems like a safe, peaceful, educational way for parents to
entertain their children. Teachers of every age group know we will have to
change our approaches to remain relevant and keep kids engaged in learning.
Good teachers of the world will continue to dream of every child reaching his
or her potential. Good parents of the world will dream too, resisting,
adjusting and adapting to protect our children from the influences most of the
world has accepted without question.
Jennifer Rogers has been a primary teacher for 20 years, the
last 10 at Countryside
Montessori School in Northbrook, Illinois. She completed
AMI primary training in Atlanta, Georgia and AMI Assistants to Infancy in
Denver, Colorado.
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