One of the mindless routine things that I do in the morning is turn the radio on for background music and to catch the weather reports, etc. It usually stays on low while we have breakfast. I figured it was just in the background and would not affect our interactions with Maeve at breakfast--in fact, I never even thought about it that much. But we are going to shut it off from now on. According to an article in the National Post, having the radio or TV on, even in the background, may slow language development because the child may have a hard time hearing words clearly with the extra noise.
We often take the opportunity of Maeve being in her high chair to go through word and picture books. She's pretty good at pointing out the things we ask her about on the page... when she feels like it. She really likes it when we can actually produce the item and she can match it up with the picture in the book. Food and household items work well; animals... not so much. Not too many cows hanging around our house. For that, we rely on toy replicas.
Since we're doing both English and a little bit of Mandarin with Maeve, I don't want to further confuse her with competing background noise from the radio. So for now, the radio will be off while we are trying to talk to her.
Here's the URL of the article if you are interested: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/artslife/story.html?id=850ca729-5d72-4ab7-a9fe-ac351cde6d53&p=2
I'll have to see if I can find the book they refer to.
We'd already decided to limit TV for her after reading that it may affect her brain development and has been potentially linked to symptoms of ADHD. e.g. inability to focus. (www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/tvapril.pdf)
But I guess for every study that shows it is bad, there's another study that says it isn't. For now, we'll continue to err on the side of caution. The TV and radio will stay off while she's awake...mostly... I must confess that I'm a bit of a TV addict. I use it to wind down and relax. It can be very brain numbing... which I guess is part of the problem. Good thing "Lost" is on after Maeve's bed time. I guess I can always record it and watch/fall asleep in front of it later...
3 comments:
Hmmm....well that's interesting. Definitely something worth researching. Bryn doesn't watch much as far as actual TV programs though we do have DVDs for her and she seems to have learned a lot from Baby Einstein and she LOVES to dance and sing along with Barney (yikes!). Though I know there really isn't any difference between TV programs and DVDs I guess my logic (?) here is the DVDs we have for her are educational ones.
Her TV is usually just a morning thing and she very rarely watches an entire DVD as her attention is usually drawn to other things (i.e. books, toys, the dog). However, I always have the TV on in the evening when Girard isn't home, just for background noise. It's almost always on the Food Network and only the commercials seem to catch Bryn's attention.
I will definitely be reading the articles you suggest, Kathleen, and thanks for the info.
Here's a recent article about educational DVDs. It seems to imply that they are ok in small doses.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20167189/site/newsweek/page/0/
And another one on TV and brain development.
http://www.brainy-child.com/article/tvonbrain.html
It is so hard to know who/what to believe on these issues. We are constantly reading articles trying to evaluate whether what we're doing is helpful or harmful.
A while ago we were trying to determine if it was a bad thing that Maeve zones out when we go for long walks with her in the stroller or when she's in her car seat. Maybe a little zone out time is good for her as she takes in the world and tries to make sense of it all. Maybe we're over analyzing everything!
I guess the old adage of everything in moderation, nothing to excess would apply.
This is very interesting. I have the TV on a lot as background noise for me, thinking it wouldn't harm Claire. I better check this article out!
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