Taming TV Time

Is Your Babysitter a Square?

By Heather Johnson Durocher

After the birth of their first son, Max, Christine and Dominic D'Amico took seriously experts' opinions that children younger than 2 shouldn't watch any television. They weren't as successful in following this rule, Christine acknowledged, when their second child came along.

"With our second we were more sloppy," she says. "Max was already watching TV so Charlie ended up seeing some by default. But we worked hard to keep it to one hour a day or less."

Whether you try to limit TV time like the D'Amicos or you tend to be more lax in your TV-watching rules, there's no denying just how powerful a force television can be in our children's lives – not to the mention our own.

"Never has the comforting, passive distraction of the computer, television or electronic entertainment been so readily available for our children," says Stacy DeBroff, parent and author of The Mom Book, 4,278 Tips for Moms (Simon & Schuster, 2002).

Jen Singer, mother of two and creator of www.MommaSaid.net, a virtual coffee break for stay-at-home moms, says she fears too many parents are using the TV as a babysitter – especially in the hours just before and after school.

And it starts early. According to a study of young children and their television-watching habits, most 10-month-olds are watching TV and by age 6 months are watching videos. The study, which involved more than 200 families in upstate New York, also found that children younger than 1 year are watching about 40 minutes of videos and one hour, 10 minutes of TV programs each day.

"You wonder why they're watching TV or videos at all," says Dorothy Singer, Ph.D., senior research scientist in the Yale University Psychology Department and Child Study Center. Singer helped conduct the study, one of the few that examine television-watching habits of very young children.

Want to see more?

• Too Much TV? Setting Limits on Television Viewing
• Turn on the Fun Without Turning on the TV
• Bonding With Books: Creating a Parent-Child Book Club
• Talk about it!