This was an interesting article for the simple fact that this study actually took into consideration the education of the children’s mothers, single parent status and other factors that might contribute to the outcome.
As always, the amount of time that toddlers watch television per week astonishes me and the fact that it keeps going up by the time children are 5 has me shaking my head. By five children should absolutely be able to entertain themselves sufficiently that the tv doesn’t need to be on that much for those “parenting breaks”. And I am certainly a supporter of those breaks, but in moderation. The television has admittedly saved my sanity time and time again.
I just have a hard time understanding it because most days our tv doesn’t even go on and the kids actually go for days without it at a time. When is there time? We go to school first thing in the morning and then by the time we are all home at 4, it’s time for home reading, then supper, then clean up, then finishing any leftover reading,bath, bedtime stories, bedtime…we honestly couldn’t fit TV into our evening schedule if we wanted. We aren’t even in the massive homework stage yet!
As always, the study shows how harmful it is to plug your toddlers into the television too much because you pay for it later.