`Mom, I’m bored. Can I watch TV?” Why does this simple question send parents into a pickle? Selfishly, we would love a little down time, yet we’ve been brainwashed to believe that TV is hazardous to our children’s health. Or is it?
Dr. Milton Chen, Director of the Center for Education and Lifelong Learning at KQED-TV, a PBS station in San Francisco, says television is the media’s whipping boy when it comes to taking the blame for many of society’s ills. His book, “The Smart Parent’s Guide to Kids’ TV” is an alternative to the opinion of many psychologists and experts who condemn TV.
Chen contends that TV, like newspapers, radio or computers, communicates a broad range of content. Its tool kit, stocked with documentaries, dramas, performances, talk shows, game shows and animation, can inform and educate as well as titillate and sell.
Chen, who is a parent, is horrified that in the average American home with children, the TV is on nearly 60 hours a week, or 8 1/2 hours a day. He says watching TV has become a default activity for many kids, a bad habit instilled by parents.
So what can you do if you are guilty of using TV as an electronic baby-sitter? Chen says parents need a wakeup call. They need to get involved, take control of the set and change from unconscious to conscious viewing.
“Many parents are simply unconscious about how much time our kids are spending with TV and what they are watching,” Chen said in a telephone interview. “Parents are unconscious about TV because we are the first generation of TV parents. We grew up with TV so we have this idea that somehow it must be okay because we turned out okay.”
According to Chen’s book, KQED-TV is so conscious of those startling statistics and so focused on helping children and parents use TV more wisely that the station took the unusual step of running on-air announcements telling children to turn off the TV and read a book or go out and play.
Children’s TV advocate Peggy Charren, who founded the media watchdog group Action for Children’s Television, wrote a preface commending Chen, saying his book provides an informative, thoughtful examination of the steps parents can take to make TV viewing an enriching experience for the whole family.
Chen recommends that children’s viewing be kept to an average of less than two hours a day, and if your kids exceed that mark they need to go on a “TV diet.”
“I was searching for some metaphor that parents would understand. It occurred that we do understand a diet of nutritional foods versus not so nutritional foods and about volume of food consumed,” says Chen. “I think with TV it’s a very parallel set of issues. Our kids are consuming too much TV so we need to cut down on the volume and then create something more nutritious and more balanced.”
Chen’s recommended daily intake consists mostly of educational fare such as “Sesame Street” (PBS), “Bobby’s World” , and “Jim Hensen’s The Secret Life of Toys” (The Disney Channel).
For school-aged children, Chen likes “ABC Afterschool Special,” “CBS Schoolbreak Special,” “Beakman’s World” (CBS), “Ghostwriter” (PBS) or “Bill Nye the Science Guy” (PBS). He suggests that a diet filled with smarter TV choices will only make kids better TV consumers.
“People ask me, `Should my child watch “Power Rangers”?’ And I tell them that `Power Rangers’ can be dessert, something you watch occasionally,” Chen said.
Parents should find “The Smart Parent’s Guide to Kids’ TV” an inspiration to help them restructure their family’s viewing habits. It’s available in bookstores for $8.95 or by calling 1-800-358-3000.
