Baby TV Gets Parental Warning In France; We Need It Here.

My wife passed along this story she saw over at The Not Quite Crunchy Parent titled “French Government Adds Warning Label To Baby TV – Could It Work Here Too?“, which talks about the new government warning that the French have applied to TV networks Baby TV and BabyFirstTV:

“Watching television can slow the development of children under 3, even when it involves channels aimed specifically at them.”

I have always been appalled when seeing children plopped in front of the TV all afternoon, and it looks like I am not alone. The American Academy of Pediatrics agrees with me, as their official policy states that parents should “Discourage television viewing for children younger than 2 years, and encourage more interactive activities that will promote proper brain development, such as talking, playing, singing, and reading together.” Why in the world does a 2 year old need to watch television? I have friends whose kids did not even know they owned a TV until they were just about 3 years old, and even now they are allowed maybe 30 minutes a day of supervised program watching.

Do we really need a network just for babies? Even the supposedly “helpful” Baby Einstein videos have now been shown to possibly delay language development in toddlers, as babies who watched the videos “scored about 10% lower on language skills than infants who had not watched these videos.”. One report from Cornell has even tied the viewing of TV by babies to the rise in autism cases. They are going to spend the rest of their life watching TV; I don’t feel that we need to start them this young. And since many parents think it is fine to allow their babies to watch hours of TV each day, maybe our government needs to issue a warning as well.

What do you think?

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