When Sesame Workshop went to market, to market with its DVD line for babies in April this year, child-development agencies and experts were outraged. Tiny tots shouldn’t be sitting in front of the tube, should they? But other experts, who helped create ‘Sesame Beginnings’, feel its launch was a milestone.
In an article in the Washington Post, staff writer Donald Oldenberg noted that: “The company does not appear to have consulted with the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) or neurologists.” It is widely understood and accepted that almost all significant human brain development occurs between 0-3 years.
So, how young is too young? When should a parent allow a baby to sit in front of a television? The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) has been absolutely consistent in its research-based recommendations: “No television whatsoever for children under two years; and ideally not until three years of age,” is their response.
Zero to Three and Sesame Workshop, the producers of the contentious DVD series claim that as many families have already embraced technology for their young babies and toddlers – that they are simply providing age-appropriate material for young children. Executives at Sesame and Zero to Three consider the DVD groundbreaking. “We took a long time and did a lot of research and preparation. We wanted to make sure we did this right,” said the Vice President of Education and Research for Sesame Workshop, Ms Rosemarie Truglio.
Susan Linn, a Harvard Medical School psychologist and founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood disagrees and goes further in her criticism of the current trend to play down the effects of media on children. “Essentially it is a betrayal of babies and families… There is no evidence that media is beneficial for babies, and they are starting to find evidence that it may be harmful. Until we know for sure, we shouldn’t risk putting them in front of the television.” Linn believes that marketing agents have set out to confuse parents by constantly alluding to how these products ‘will maximise their children’s potential.’
Research by the Kaiser Foundation and other children’s agencies indeed discovered that millions of babies and toddlers in the US watch up to two hours of television per day. They stated that the virtual ‘explosion’ of new products onto the market in the past three years (including a new subscriber channel called Baby First TV) has merely served to expose enormous differences of opinion and heated argument amongst professionals in medicine, psychology and the media. To say nothing of what families are making of all the contradictory information!
The Kaiser Foundation report also states that the world of childhood is now super-saturated by technology. The organization recommends that parents look closely at these issues in order to make informed decisions about what is suitable for their children. “Kids that age are only awake 12 hours a day, so we have a generation of children who are watching television 10-20 percent of their waking lives…and that’s a dramatic increase,” says paediatrician Dimitri Christakis, director of the Child Health Institute at the University of Washington in Seattle. Christakis’ research has found that early exposure to television can prove detrimental to both the child’s attention span and cognitive development.
Christakis’ research has made a direct link between children watching too much television and the childhood onset of attention deficit disorders and anti social behaviour. Some of the research points specifically to the speed and the digital composition of the visual imagery in the visual media. Some experts have stated that visual media has the capacity not only to interrupt but to disrupt and upset the initial formation of the cerebral cortex which is critical to lifelong development.
This research seems to be corroborated by another body of research that has recently suggested that the secure and constant gaze of a loving carer is the most vital element of infancy and early childhood development. “In particular, the mother’s emotionally expressive face is, by far, the most potent visual stimulus in the infant’s environment, and the child’s intense interest in her face, especially in her eyes…” This apparently leads the child to ‘track the mother’s face’ and to engage in periods of intense mutual gaze…” It has been said that learning how to communicate represents perhaps the most important developmental process to take place during infancy and childhood. “
And don’t think that babies do not know what they are watching, as research has shown that even very young babies are able to ‘read’ the significance of adult behaviours in media content, as child researcher Donna Mumme found and documented in her work. Babies learnt to respond to pleasurable or fearful stimuli and events by watching closely the responses of actors in her behavioural research trials.
Baby Einstein spokesperson Rashmi Turner, said that the company works with child-development experts to create its videos. “Why not give parents useful ways to take advantage of what’s there instead of telling them to avoid it?”
However, Susan Linn at Harvard isn’t impressed. “Their argument that parents are already doing it doesn’t wash. One thing we know is that parents are going to be struggling with kids about media for the rest of their childhoods. Why in the world would anyone suggest parents put their kids in front of the TV before kids even ask for it?”
Baby Einstein (owned by Disney) made retail sales of almost $200 million in 2005. The Kaiser Foundation surveys reported that only 6% of parents knew of the AAP Paediatrician group’s policy of: No TV under 2 years recommendation, which it adopted in 1999.
Growing up is all about being loved, accepted and learning to manage one’s feelings. All the so-called ‘educational stimulation’ in the world is no substitute for a parent’s presence, for walking down a street through autumn leaves, feeding the cat or managing periods of boredom and quietude. To paraphrase the great Albert Einstein himself – the best thing you can do for your children is to try and see the world a little bit like they do. That’s almost enough to stop the worry!
We live in an age where many of us have lost touch with the basics of life and with our instincts. Doctors now tell us that fevers in children are fine up to a point – yet curiously, most of us will still reach for the fever suppressants.
There is no wrong or right – but learning to trust oneself as a parent is the essential issue. And such strengthening of that inner-confidence – that we know our own children – will help all of us.