February/March 2008

S.M.A.R.T. MOVE: Turn Off the Tube and Turn On the Fun! by Cheryl Smythe

Did you know...the average child watches 6240 hours of television before entering 1st Grade?

Yes, we said...over 6000 hours, which translates to about 2 hours and 45 minutes per day!

We all know there can be significant consequences for watching too much TV.

But it has been shown that children who watch TV more than 10 hours a week suffer negative academic effects. *

As educators and parents, you are aware of the strong connection between visual and academic skills. Ways in which excessive television watching may affect vision include:

Watching television is a two-dimensional activity, meaning it has a flat screen.

Watching this large volume of TV could have effects on the ability of the eye to focus correctly.

Our eyes are designed to adjust their focus at many, many different ranges.

When children are involved in normal play, their eyes are doing this constantly.

When they watch TV, their eyes are really sustaining the focus at one range.

Some long-term effects, by not practicing the adjusting to the many different ranges, can be:

An inability to keep near objects in focus (examples are worksheets, reading material, deskwork, etc.) and/or

An inability to focus quickly and accurately from near to far (examples are copying from the board, looking at the board and then down at a worksheet, etc.)

And there are other potential health and emotional problems excessive TV watching can cause. . . . .

OBESITY

At least 12 medical studies link excessive television watching to increasing rates of obesity.*

During Saturday morning cartoons there are typically more than 200 "junk-food" commercials.*

AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

By age 18, the average American child sees 200,000 violent acts on TV. *

73% of the time, the people in TV dramas who commit violent acts go unpunished. *

80% of Hollywood executives think there is a link between TV violence and real-life violence.*

FAMILY CONCERNS

54% of 4-6 year-olds who, when asked to choose between watching TV and spending time with their fathers, said they would prefer to watch television. *

What can all of this tell us?

TURN OFF THE TUBE AND TURN ON THE FUN!

Here are just a few suggestions, some of which are from parents.com (search under TV-Free Activities):

Have a tickle party. Wrestle and roll around with your kids.

Let the kids take every cushion off the sofa and build a fort. Crawl through once or twice yourself.

Share a skill with your kids -- do you knit, sew, tie flies, play an instrument? Spend some time passing on your knowledge.

Pull out art activities and spend time around the kitchen table with crayons, paper, paints, clay, etc.

Go ice-skating -- have hot chocolate after.

Have a dance party in the living room.

Blow bubbles on a cold day and see if they crack in the frigid air.

Fly a kite on a windy spring day.

Take a walk -- enjoy nature and fresh air.

Laugh more, talk more, enjoy each other more -- the thing about television is that it means you never face each other. Once you start interacting more, you might find that you live with some pretty great folks.

* Taken from the cybercollege.com website.