Television Violence and Children Don't Mix: How to Set Limits

Question

The child I watch loves TV. When should I say, "stop?"

Three Expert Answers

According to Ulla G. Foehr, co-author of a Kaiser Family Foundation study on media and young children, it depends.

“It depends on what and how much your child is watching. Keep your child away from violent television. Watch with them and talk about what you see. Limit the amount of television, ideally to less than an hour a day.

"Even the highest quality television can be bad for your child if it takes away from other family home activities. Young people who live in homes where the TV is on most of the time (even if no one is watching) read less than in homes where the TV is on a little of the time or never. 

“My kids watch very little television. When the TV is on, they are usually watching a DVD because I already know what’s on it. Most importantly, I try to use television to expose them to things they might not otherwise be exposed to. Animal and nature programs are a good example. My plan is to never let them have televisions in their rooms.”  

According toMatthew Gentzkow, co-author of University of Chicago study,“Does TV Rot Your Brain?” TV isn't so bad, especially if the alternatives are worse.

“Our studies suggest that there are no significant negative affects of television on the academic performance of kids.  … Children can learn vocabulary, language, general knowledge and facts about the world, and those benefits are especially big for certain groups, like for parents and kids who don’t speak English (and kids whose) parents are less educated. 

“If the choice is, should my child watch three hours of TV a day or are we going to go to a museum, do math and read books, we agree that (the latter) would be better for kids. But the reality is that’s not a reality for most parents, taking two or three hours a day with their kids.

"People have this intuition that TV must be terrible for their kids. What they’re imagining is the worst stuff on TV versus the best possible alternatives. We all agree that time with parents would be better, but what our study points to is that most of what people see on TV isn’t so bad, and also, most of the alternatives for average families aren’t so great.”

 
According to Bryan Taylor, President of EduGuide, TV time should be limited.

“We used TV as a babysitter to save time, but the more they watched, the more they hassled us. Then I heard two things: First, the American Academy of Pediatrics said children younger than 2 should watch no TV at all, and older children should watch no more than one to two hours a day of educational, nonviolent programs.

"Next I heard that 54 percent of 4-to 6-year-olds say they’d rather watch TV than spend time with their dad. And the scary part was I could see it happening to us. So we went cold turkey. Everyone stopped watching for 40 days over Lent. It was hard at first, but after a week, the kids found how much they liked playing on their own.”