I read this on CNN and wanted to share this story with all the Mother's out there that are sending their children to daycares. A study showed that children in daycare centers are watching 2.4 hours of television a day. Here is the link to the full story http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/28/daycare.children.tv/index.html.
I guess my thoughts are, why are people paying so much money for daycare when television is raising your children? I do not have children but I found this pretty odd.
Do you have children? How do you feel about this?
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I grew up with Sesame Street and I think it was one of the best TV shows ever made. Big bird and Kermit, Burt and Ernie were all favorites when I was growing up. But I never liked Elmo. The character just seemed pretty poor compared to the others. Yes, my friends, Elmo is boring. Sorry. I know this will offend some of Elmo fans out there but it's the truth. I regularly keep up to date with kids websites such as www.DozenKids.com, where Sesamestreet's website was ranked as the top E-Learning. Well deserved.
March 23, 2010 - 5:06amThis Comment
I think we need more information. If the television is being used as a babysitter, that's one thing. Or if the adult in the house is watching their soap opera and the children just happen to be exposed to it, I'm totally against this.
But if the television is on for a couple hours a day of child-based television, I'd have no problem with that. Educational shows made especially for children entertain while teaching. I watched both my siblings learn to read by age 3 just by watching Sesame Street, the Electric Company and Mister Rogers. We always had a house full of books, but they learned to read even more quickly than they would have normally.
I worry more about the daycare centers that are on the high end of the average (for an average to be 2.4 hours, it stands to reason that some daycare centers are on either end of that spectrum, meaning some never have the television on and some may have it on for many more hours.
On the other hand, my sister raised 3 of her 4 kids without daycare, and she often had the television on during the day. A day includes so many things -- baths, meals, playtime, cleanup and naps, on an endless loop -- that sometimes television was the only entity in the room speaking in a grownup voice! I would venture a guess that many stay-at-home parents depend on the television at least a couple hours a day just to make contact with the outside world!
December 1, 2009 - 8:30amThis Comment
That is interesting; I had never thought that daycares would use TV as a source of entertainment, but after reading the article, it states, "on an average day, home-based programs showed about 1.6 hours to toddlers, compared with 0.1 hours for center-based programs, and 2.4 hours to preschool children compared with 0.4 hours."
I would love to hear from parents with children in home-based programs, to see if they feel this is accurate? The preschools we are looking into for my son provide a daily schedule of what the activities are, and there really isn't time for TV (and, there are no TVs in the room...perhaps an important item to look for when doing a tour of the facility). The article did not state if these daycare programs are all-day, but I assume they are (my son's preschool would just be 9am-1pm two days-a-week, so it is a really short amount of time).
I wonder if there is a piece of the puzzle that was not discussed, as the home-based daycares reported much more TV watching. Other factors could be that the toddlers and preschoolers are in the home-based program for longer hours than a center-based program, and that could explain why there is a few hours of TV? I understand that TV is not a good activity for children, but were the kids watching an educational show for 20 minutes while the caregivers made lunches...is there a "good reason" for the TV viewing?
November 29, 2009 - 9:30pmThis Comment