Learning from televiewing

Parents, educators and child psychologists should take note of a recent TV study on the negative effects of too much televiewing on the school readiness of kids aged 5 to 6.

The US study surveyed 800 children being assessed for entry into kindergarten, and comparatively evaluated them on point of ability to count, letter recognition and sorting blocks according to pattern and shape.

It significantly found that TV’s impact on school readiness was worse for poor kids.

Children at or near the poverty line who watched a lot of TV (more than two hours per day) were significantly less developed “in terms of mathematical abilities and executive function—skills involved in the pursuit of goals, including inhibition, attention, working memory and cognitive flexibility.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics has thus recommended that “preschoolers watch no more than an hour of TV a day.”

How can these findings be made to come to bear on young Filipino televiewers’ learning prospects?

Since TV is used locally as a cheap way to keep little children occupied and out of their elders’ hair, the situation here could be even more problematic than in the United States.

So, the “only one hour a day” rule should be enforced more stringently to minimize the potential “damage.”

This, of course, is easier said than done—but, parents who want to boost their kids’ development and prospects for success should act before their prized offsprings’ future is permanently circumscribed.

Aside from limiting TV viewing for preschoolers, parents and guardians should also make it a point to watch TV with their children, so that they can vet what they’re watching, and discuss whatever topics and questions are raised.

It goes without saying that parents shouldn’t leave the choice of program being watched by their kids to the household help, since some maids, yayas and child-minders will choose the shows they like, which could be too mature in content or visual for little children to assimilate or deal with.

Generalizing now, we hope that the country’s child psychologists will be more proactive this season in reacting to issues related to television’s effect and influence on young viewers.

We hold child psychologists in high regard, because they have spent years to formally study the special needs and problems of juvenile televiewers, which the rest of us try to understand.

In fact, there was a time when we lobbied for more child psychologists to be made members of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, because they have the best training for deciding on what’s proper for kids to watch.

Since that key change and improvement hasn’t happened yet, child psychologists can still make their influence felt informally, by more frequently reacting in the media to how child performers and characters are depicted or handled on TV.

The way we see it, there are many problems in this regard this season, so a lot of insightful vetting is decidedly in order—and our child psychologists are the best people to perform that very essential function.