TV, toys and your child’s imagination… my, how times have changed
There was a fascinating report on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday on children, imaginative play, television and marketing.
“Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills” by Alix Spiegel. It brings to light some fascinating things we’ve suspected but couldn’t put our finger on…
television is bad for you. No. Really?
Listen up, single mothers.
Seriously. Listen to the article, read the article, be prepared to be amazed. Our children don’t engage in the kind of free-wheeling, unstructured exploration that our grandparents, hell, even our parents engaged in. As a result, children don’t learn how to self-regulate. For instance, researchers replicated an experiment performed on three, five, and seven year olds back in the 40’s, telling each age group to stand still until the researcher said to stop. The three year olds back then had a hard time, the five year olds could do it with some success but not lengthy endurance, and the seven year olds could basically stand still until the researchers released them. Today, the five year olds perform at the level of three year olds fifty years ago, and the seven year olds are barely able to perform as well as yesteryear’s five year olds.
No wonder we’re over-medicating our kids and labeling them hyperactive and ADD, ADHD, all those bits of challenge and discouragement. Our kids haven’t learned how to regulate themselves.
So put your kid in his or her room, turn off the TV and the radio, and let them play. Bring them outside and let them run wild. You’ll be doing them a world of good.
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2 opinions for TV, toys and your child’s imagination… my, how times have changed
nagylany
Feb 23, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Here! Here! Kids totally need time for creative play that involves simple things like boxes, paper plates, and play-do. Seriously. The same goes for sitting in the car for (extended) drives WITHOUT A DVD player. Our school has eliminated recess due to budget/supervision issues and it has had a really negative effect on the kids when they do get together to play. Lots of arguing, tattling, and aggressive behaviours.
navi
Feb 23, 2008 at 6:56 pm
hmmm… I scanned the article… they like blaming generational issues on tv… I even read a study that determined there was a slightly higher rate of autism in rainier areas since the 80s and so that must definitely mean it is the fault of cable television.
previous generations were also expected to sit still. Children were meant to be seen and not heard. Kids like my son were locked up in institutions… We’re a bit more open today. Children that might have been adhd today were trained, where they might not have been today. (by the way, when your kid gets diagnosed w/ adhd, they try to do behavioral intervention before meds… unless the parents aren’t willing to do the behavioral intervention, or its just the family physician prescribing meds, instead of referring to therapy … ) So, before the rampant dx of adhd, parents were making their kids sit still, which um, is a form of behavioral intervention. It’s one of the things they have add kids practice at (didn’t work for my poor daughter who doesn’t always self regulate, but then she’s not really adhd, just has a few similar symptoms)
Classrooms today look nothing like even my classrooms of 20 years ago, which were rows of desks. Children are allowed more mobility today. sitting still isn’t exactly on their agenda…
I’m also trying to figure out this oxymoron. Do we want them to sit still or be active? The lack of the ability to sit still is the tvs fault. The fact that they’re sitting still and not running around outside is the tv’s fault. um, okay. I can see tv breeds impatience, that makes sense, but an inability to sit still, um, no.
As I stated, my oldest has issues w/ self regulation, only for a vast majority of her growing up, we haven’t had television. I also didn’t have a car for a good portion of her preschool years, in a smaller city, so there was an awful lot of coming up with ways to keep ourselves entertained while waiting for the bus. She’s only recently started spending too much time on video games (she’s had the self regulation issues since she was 4, she’s now 9 - the onset in preschool age suggests its biological, btw) she reads books and plays imaginatively with or without toys all the time, and when she did watch tv, she was always encouraged not to plant her butt in front of it - ie she wasn’t sitting down watching it, she was playing with toys, or with her parents - we’d have friends come over and try to say, if you’re going to watch it sit and watch it, and I’d respond, um, not in this household… I figured it wasn’t good for her to be sitting and watching it, so I strongly discouraged it. In reference to the comment: we don’t have a dvd player in our car… I don’t think most people do… at least there aren’t any glowing from any of the cars pulled up at my daughter’s school, and every kid gets driven there, as there’s no busing, just because they’re cheap and available doesn’t mean everyone has em - driving is for talking, listening to the radio or being absolutely silly…
So I think it’s a little more complicated than blaming it on our media culture. I wonder if some of it is what is coming out of the box, than the box itself. I wonder if some of it has more to do with busy parents, who don’t take time out w/ their kids (I make that distinction as there are plenty of busy parents who do). I wonder if it has to do with a changing culture. Things are so much more complicated than ‘don’t watch tv.’ but maybe ‘don’t watch tv’ will force people to be a bit more creative…
Also, self regulation isn’t all about sitting still for a few minutes. I’m sure there are plenty of children that can’t sit still but can self regulate (I probably fit that description quite well when I was 5). As an adult who shifts around at her desk at work and therefore doesn’t have ergo issues, I think sitting still is overrated…
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