TV and Child Development

I am reading “Set Free Childhood” by Martin Large. I think it is a wake up call to many parents who think TV is harmless, or some of them may think TV as an education tools or even worse for some use TV as a babysitter. Please read this book:

Too much exposure to the electronic media may risk the following potential health hazards and developmental blocks in young children:
Physical effects:

• Difficulty switching off
• Blunted senses, visual strain, and under-stimulation of the developing brain
• Health and light
• Side-effects of toxic emissions and electromagnetic radiation Repetitive strain injure (RSI) - muscular-skeletal injuries
• Childhood obesity, lack of exercise, and movement disorders

Social and emotional effects

• Social isolation and withdrawal,
the plug-on drug: electronic addiction;
• Undermining of play; commercial exploitation;
• anti-social behaviour

Cognitive effects

• Disorganized brains,
• less creativity and imagination,
• undermining of language and literacy,
• attention deficit and inability to concentrate;
• lean and mean view of the world; educational effects.

My husband is very firm about TV policy at our home, we in fact did not own a TV set till two years ago, and we won a free TV set by some coupon lucky draw. Our oldest son was grown up more or less TV free.

What did we do in our spare time? Many asked, we read books, played outdoor, and had some much fun;

How did you know the news and what happened in the world, to be honest, we do even subscribe a paper, the news will bombard to us. We hear the news from radio, from people talking, if we really concern particular news, we dig it.

Isn’t there wonderful education programme that benefit children? Yes, we don’t deny them. But we have found it not necessary for young children, from 0-5. In fact, Children learn more from books, play, interact with others. We do allow our children watch controlled children movie on DVD or VHD once a week, without commercials.