WebParenTips - The Online Parenting Newsletter vol.5 no.1, Jan 2004 

                          TODDLER TV

Tell me folks is there anyone out there, except the producers
of kiddie TV commercials, who really thinks a preschooler needs
a TV set in his or her bedroom?

I guess a bunch of parents do. Over a third of children UNDER SIX
have a TV set in their bedrooms according to the latest Kaiser
Family Foundation Report.

99% of these under-six children live in a home with a TV set, 50%
of homes have three or more TVs, and 97% of the children have
products like clothes or toys based on TV or movie characters.

49% live in a home with a DVD player (something Dr. Heins hasn't
got around to buying yet and may never buy as I have grown weary
of new gadgets and already spend too much time in front of a screen).

One third of these children live in a home where TV is left on
always or most of the time. 45% of the parents surveyed said it
is very or somewhat likely that they will use TV to occupy their
children if they have something important to do.

Our preschoolers are wired. 73% live in a home with a computer.
Nearly twice as many children (63%) live in a home with internet
access as with a newspaper subscription (34%). Nearly half have
used a computer and one in four have played video games.

These kiddies spend on the average about two hours a day with
screen media, about the same time they spend playing outdoors
and three times as much time as they spend reading or being read to.

If nearly all the little tykes have products based on TV or
movie characters this means everybody is being brainwashed,
kids and parents alike.

If I had my druthers no child under two would look at TV, TV
would be limited to 30 minutes a day for preschoolers and school
age children. My twin grandkids manage to survive on that TV diet
with exceptions made for a special movie or a sick day.

I can't reach those parents who have already installed a TV in
their kid's room but let me preach to the rest of you. 

Don't do it. What kids need most these days is CONNECTIONS,
not to the cable networks, but to their parents and friends.


Happy Parenting,
Marilyn Heins, M.D.


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Dr. Marilyn Heins is a Tucson pediatrician, parenting
columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, author of the book,
ParenTips, as well as a mother, stepmother and grandmother.

She is available for workshops and lectures to groups of
parents, teachers, and grandparents. See:

Dr. Heins' Lectures
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