Children in day care see a lot of TV

[The Straight Story]

Children in day care see a lot of TV


SEATTLE, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Those in home-based daycare watched TV for 2.4 hours per day on average, compared to 0.4 hours in center-based settings, U.S. researchers found.

Lead researcher Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute and professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, looked at television use in 168 child care programs in four states.

The majority of preschoolers are commonly cared for by someone other than a parent, away from home in a child care setting -- either home-based day care or center-based care, which is more like a preschool with children of similar ages, Christakis said.

The study, scheduled to be published in the December issue of Pediatrics, found that among preschool-age children, those in home-based day cares watched TV for 2.4 hours per day on average, compared to 0.4 hours in center-based settings.

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/11/23/Children-in-day-care-see-a-lot-of-TV/UPI-29611259004906/

[Odin2005]

1. No child under the age of 2 should watch any TV

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Mine did, although it was more the case for the second one as

his brother, who is 23 months older, was really into PBS and Noggin programming. So little guy watched TV by default.

What the effect will be on them in the long term I don't know, but I do think in the short run it supplemented the work I did with them on reading and learning numbers, shapes, and colors and so forth. They went into Kindergarten already knowing everything in the curriculum, plus a whole lot more. The main reason I put them in there was to work on socialization, since they had spent most of their time at home with me and each other.

[mitchum]

4. +1

[NYC_SKP]

2. I imagine that kids in home day care also get far less time interacting with other kids.

Which may be even more significant than the TV hours.

[surrealAmerican]

5. That's precisely why that statistic is a concern.

It's not so much that TV is harmful, it's that it's not nearly as helpful developmentally as the other activities they would be engaged in, like interacting with one another and with caregivers.

[Brickbat]

6. When I was screening day cares for my first kid, the office of the director at the first one I went

to was full, floor to ceiling and wall to wall, of video tapes. I walked right out. The second one had very little TV, with none for those younger than 3. It was awesome, and I loved that place.