Electronic Media and Our Children

I am not trying to make parents feel guilty here with all these posts dealing with parenting issues.  I know I dealt with sleep yesterday, but after reading this post by Al Mohler yesterday on our children and electronic media, I had to bring it to light for other parents to think about.  I am really not hear to say what decisions your family should make about electronic media, but simply to stir up some thinking and help you know WHY you do what you do in your family.  I think the most important thing for families is not often what they do, but to have a reason for why they do it.  We should be active as parents in deciding what is best for our children, not just passively going along with what everyone else is doing.

Seeing that children ages 8 to 18 years old spend an average of 7.5 hours a day with electronic media was a bit frightening to me.  But when you think about the hours added up of television, video games, computers and internet, cell phones (including text messaging, calling and surfing the internet on their phone), electronic reading devices (ie. the Kindle), and other various systems, it is easy to see how that time can add up.  I know for our family in just the past year or so we have become owners of a Kindle, Apple TV, Sling Catcher, 2 iPhones, GPS system, Wii system and Leapster Learning system.  That is a whole lot more technology to spend our time and efforts on!  So we have tried to consistently evaluate where our time and efforts are going in the electronic world.  Tomorrow I will deal with how we as adults set the example with electronics, but today I will just deal with our children.

Television: From the beginning of our marriage, television has never been a big part of our lives.  Joe and I are not huge tv watchers (although Joe was at one point!), so it wasn’t hard not to have our kids watch much television either.  We have decided to try and follow the AAP recommendations of not having children under age 2 watch television as far as we can prevent it.  We made this decision agreeing with John Rosemond’s thinking that at a young age there is so much development going on and there are so many other positive activities to engage in.  We wanted our home to be one where reading, physical activity and creativity were emphasized.  And for us, when television time is added into the day, often one of these other positive things is cut out.

When Abby was ages 2 and under, it was very easy.  It was not until she was 3 years of age that we began letting her watch about an hour of videos on Saturday.  At that time Elijah was a year and a half old and so he was around when this was happening.  Because he had not been introduced to television early on, he really wasn’t interested for awhile.  With Naomi we have found the same thing.  With not viewing it early on, there is less of an interest until about 2.5 years old.  When we did introduce television, here were a couple of guidelines that helped us (other helpful ones can be found in this article):

1. We tried to make the programs as educational and interactive as possible.  The kids watch shows like Dora the Explorer, Diego and Friends, The Magic School Bus, The Bearenstein Bears, etc. that are some what educational and “interactive”.  I say “interactive” hesitantly because almost all television causes children to become passive participants.

2. When possible we try to watch with them to facilitate discussion.  Television can be a great way to talk about various topics in life.

3. We try and view things without commercials.  The kids usually watch DVDs of shows or movies.  This way commercials are eliminated that can expose them to constant advertisements telling them of all they “need”.  Obviously these would all be good discussions as well, but the commercials in a show can get to be a bit of a bombardment.

4. Television is typically limited to Saturdays, except for special movie nights.  During the other days of the week we tend not to watch television unless Joe has an away game that is on television.  Sports are an area where the kids will often get to watch for a special occasion, usually just for the bigger events like the World Series, NFL playoffs and Super Bowl, NCAA basketball tournament, etc.

5. Exceptions are made and accounted for.  Obviously there are times when more than 2 hours will be viewed in a week.  When we fly the kids watch much more on the airplane than normal.  During our holiday break home they watched more than usual.  But when those exceptions come, we try to take note and then scale back in the weeks that follow.

6. Television is viewed like junk food that is a treat we have occasionally but too much of can be a bad thing.

7. We own one television that is in a common area.  We have no television in bedrooms.

8. The television is only turned on if there is a purposeful, planned program we want to watch.  It doesn’t stay on as background noise.

Video Games: We have now entered the world of video games as of Christmas Day.  Joe and I received a Wii game system (which the kids already had experience with from family and friends) and Abby received a Leapster (even though it is educational, I consider it a video game).  I was a bit concerned with the new introduction of video games into our lives.  I have already seen a decline in Abby’s other activities, like doing crafts and looking at books on her own, even though we have limited the time on video games to 30 minutes each day.  One rule we have set so far is that Sundays we don’t play video games at all.  I am sure we will learn and adjust the longer we have video games in our home.

Computer: A large part of Abby’s school involves the use of a computer.  She may have short videos to watch in different subjects, use it as part of her Educational Technology class or use it for the Fast ForWord curriculum that the school uses.  This accounts for about 30-60 minutes of computer time for her a day.  She has also received various computer educational games in the past.  We treat these as video games, so that she must make the decision whether she wants to play Wii, her Leapster or a computer game for 30 minutes during the day.  I do appreciate that she is fairly comfortable on the computer, but still want to limit the time she is using it each day.  Currently the only contact Elijah has with a computer is what he watches Abby do and Naomi has none at all.

I know as the kids get older we will have to discern through issues like when they get a cell phone or iPod, whether or not they can have a Facebook account, how to monitor e-mail communication and a host of other issues that new technology will bring.  We have not crossed that bridge yet, so my thinking on it is still rather shallow.  I do know that much of what they learn about interactions with electronic media comes from Joe and I though.  So that is why we are constantly discussing and discerning our own use of electronics, which I will speak more about on Monday.