Got an email from my boss yesterday and I thought it was such a timely reminder for me.
It was an article that talks about how bad excessive TV watching is for kids. It basically states that kids’ TV time is directly linked to school woes and bad behaviors. Their research on 1,300 children found that not only did the health of the kids suffer, they also had problems learning in school & getting along with their peers. Sounded pretty grave, I must say.
I’ve always known that too much of TV is not good, and it promotes passive learning in the kids. Many parents (including me) sometimes fall into this trap of letting our kids watch too much TV so that we don’t have to keep thinking of activities to engage them. Looks like it’s time to really do a reality check.
Joey spends her days in school, and she goes through a routine of learning, playing and reading everyday with about 1 hour of TV time at the end of the day while waiting for us to fetch her. Her TV time continues when she reaches home until she sleeps. When she’s not in school, she spends a lot of time watching cartoons at home!
Thankfully, there’re many good educational cartoons on Disney Channel nowadays, which is why I am not super against her watching. This was also one of the points raised in the article that was sent to me – There’re some programmes for kids which are educational and can help instill an important value into your kids, such as Sesame Street, In fact, while research says that TV-watching encourages passive learning, I’ve noticed that Joey has picked up many new things from watching the different cartoons. Most of them talk about friendship - Sharing of things with friends; Filial piety – Loving your Dad & Mum; Good behavior – No lying and no throwing of tantrums… She internalizes all those values and even I have used them as platforms for reminding her sometimes. It works for me.
Then again, at the end of the day, I do believe that too much TV-watching is never good. That is why I think the email was a timely reminder. Rather than letting my kids spend all their time on the couch watching cartoons, it’s more beneficial and educational to engage them in creative work like drawing, painting, art & craft work, coloring, etc. Those activities will inspire them and unleash the creativity within them. Maybe we cannot see it now, but such soft skills will benefit them greatly when they grow up into adulthood. It’s all part of character molding.
Just like last Monday, I brought Joey to the National Library and she had a great time flipping through the many books she took from the shelves and weaving her own stories because she can’t read yet. =) I read her some of the stories and she was thrilled to read so many new books. This is so much better than her watching TV at home.
Are you also letting your kids watch too much TV? Time to take stock.. =)
