As a young mother I read a study that said television watching for kids under 2 years old seemed to correlate with higher rates of ADHD. Something about the synapses still forming and forming in the short bursts of 7-second frames so common in most videos and television programs. It advocated repetitious play and puzzles that would help the child’s brain develop long synapses and form habits of concentrating for longer periods of time. It made total sense to me and was advice I followed for all three of my children – although somewhat modified for Ryan whose first year in the hospital was beyond my control. We all know that Ryan and I have been warring over movies ever since.
Well, next week is National Screen Free Week – meaning no t.v., no video games, no computer…. thus the no screen part. I will still be using my computer. However, my children will not be watching t.v. This is easy for the girls who (mostly) don’t watch t.v. during the school week anyway, but I’m curious to see what can be done with my t.v. loving son – who is watching Cars as we speak.
Anyone want to join us? With the weather so nice, it’s easy to send the kids outside to play after school. For Ryan, I’ll have to pull out preschool fun during the day and finally teach him how to play by himself. We’ll see how it goes!
Who’s in?
Comments (1)
My four year old woke up, came downstairs and asked me if she could turn on the TV in the upstairs game room. I’m exhausted from being up through the night with her sick two year old sister for the past week so I said yes…and now i read this…nice. Ha!
We had a screen free week about two months ago and it changed our lives (until this week). My girls fought me the first several days (especially the younger one because I let her watch TV while big sis is at school so I can be more done!). But after that week we agreed to one 30-minute show per day and 20 minutes of ipad time per kid each day. They no longer liked to sit still to watch that one show. It was boring to them to sit still in front of the TV. Yay!!!
I’m not going to promise to join this week…this tired momma needs to have an alternate source of entertainment for a still-sick toddler! But we’ll do it again. It was worth it, even though the first three days felt like torture!