I am not sure whether we are uptight parent or not if we aren't allowing our 11 months old not to watch TV at home. I have been discussing this issue with Ludo when she was only a tiny seed inside me. We argued, criticized, analysed, challenged each other for us to get into the same page on parenting. For the past few months, we've been following and observing our friends and their children when the TV is turn on. This probably one of the sensitive issue in modern parenting. No, we are not trying to be different among other parents but it is the issue that we find it important to help to raise our kids during their early years.
There are 2 schools of thought on introducing TV to younger viewers. First, TV can be an educational media to acquire social skills and knowledge about the world surrounding. It could be also a tool to relax and calm the kids when they are agitated (in the wrong time). The other thinks that TV discourages learning and healthy physical and social development.
Right now, I am talking about younger babies (0-18 months). I have noticed that there are more TV programmes for them. In the market, they are sellinf Baby DVD such as Baby Einstein, Brainy Babies with smart marketing campaigns. These marketers bring up the theory of raising a smart baby in the spread articles of motherhood and parenting's magazines. Who doesn't want our younger baby can read, count and talk in different languages? It is good development skills that every parents dream of! The DVDs are readily available and yes, Ludo even insisted to me that it is a good buy from Carrefour! At that moment I said, we have subscribed a cable where there are Baby TV, Playhouse Disney Channel etc, why do we need more Baby CDs and DVDs? But eventually I agreed with him and thought if she could be smarter and acquire some new skills earlier will be awesome, we are going to be a very proud parent. But something inside me craved to find out more about it.
My journey began when I saw Ludo and Noelia were frozen stiff watching Baby TV programme. Both of them have the same expression, their eyes glued and mouth open a bit. It really looks like they have been hypnotized.
Let me trying to explain a bit of our background, Ludo is usually addicted to TV during his holiday in the hotel room cos it is a way to relax. He knows the weakness, so he prefers not to have TV at home until I insisted for the entertainment when I was full breastfeeding Noelia before. There was never a big deal with TV before we were married, we didn't have any. It wasn't too important for us although we had no clue what our friends mentioned some of the good shows like "Desperate Housewives", "Heroes" etc. But we watch movies at home or in cinema from different countries. We got busy meeting up with friends or cooking or reading together in our spare time. My childhood was spent watching TV for entertainment but I was assigned to help with household chores, so it is limited for certain hours allowed by my parent. I started working and studying at the age of 17.
Are babies getting smarter when they watch Baby Einstein or other educational DVD regurlarly? We found that the best teachers are the parent and caretakers to interact with them, it is far more effective to learn language that way than watching it from Baby DVD. It doesn't meant that this programme is harmful but it is not the best. But there are researchers mentioned that by parking our infant in front of TV in no time will delay language development in toddlers.
"...the majority of the videos don't try to promote language; they have rapid
scene changes and quick edits, and no appearance of the 'parent-ese' type of
speaking that parents use when talking to their babies."
"There is an assumption that stimulation is good, so more is better. But that's not true; there is such a thing as overstimulation. Their minds come to expect a high
level of stimulation, and view that as normal, and by comparison, reality is
boring."
Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis, the University of Washington
Although this research is still an early stage to prove the negative effects of TV to younger viewers but I am prone to stay in the safe side, back to natural. Personally, I agreed thay the children learn better by doing than by watching. Why do we count flowers using TV media when there are more natural flowers out in the garden? There are more things we can learn from the nature which have been provided to us.
She finds it hillarious if we imitates babies expressions or animal sounds while we reading aloud (just don't let anyone else see us). She is excited to see her Papa dancing (badly) following the children's tune. She even find it amusant when Papa sing the children song out of tune. But I know for sure that she learns to get to know the world from her parent's eyes and ears etc. and not from TV.
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