Home > Resources > Articles > Babies and TV: Three Simple Guidelines for Parents

Babies and TV: Three Simple Guidelines for Parents

If you are the parent of a baby or toddler, then you've probably struggled with questions about your child watching TV. As with all of your child's activities, proper parental involvement is the key to making television viewing a positive learning experience for your child, says Alexandra M. Tornek, who holds an MS in Clinical Psychology and whose Doctoral work focused on Early Childhood Development.

As the published author of numerous papers on Early Childhood Development, Ms. Tornek answers many questions regarding children and television viewing, especially from new parents. She and her husband, Scott Tornek, co-founders of So Smart! Productions, hear these questions the most often:

As a responsible new parent, should I let my baby watch TV?

The answer is a qualified, 'Yes.' . . . television can be used as a wonderful, stimulating vehicle for early childhood learning, but with the proper content, and usage guidelines. The feedback we have received over the years from customers as well as educators and experts has supported this viewpoint. Parents have had incredible learning experiences with certain types of programming.

If I do allow my baby to watch TV, how do I make this a proper learning experience?

To help answer this question, Ms. Tornek and her husband offer parents of babies and toddlers these television-viewing guidelines:

1) Choose Age-Appropriate Programs

Television as we know it is meant to entertain us as adults.

To illustrate this, "mute" the sound on your TV set and count how many "jump-cuts," or abrupt scene changes, you see.
Our adult brains are able to process information quite quickly and "fill in the gaps" to convert a series of well-calculated, individual scenes into a meaningful story experience.
Children need more time than we do to absorb information.
A preschool program (for ages three to six years old) is typically slower than a program geared for adults.
Take this a step further, and imagine what a baby's needs are at, say, one year of age, in order to process material in this format.
Not only do babies need more time to absorb the information, but the information itself must be specialized for their age level as well.

What does this translate to?

In part, what attracts babies visually is innate.
For instance, infants will prefer to look at objects high in contrast, such as the pupils of the eyes or the source of mother's milk (the nipple).
Not surprisingly, when watching television, bold, high-contrast, colorful, simple images and concepts are the types of visuals your baby will be able to best absorb and process.
In addition, due to their age, slow-moving images with few, or no, abrupt scene changes are best matched to these early stages of development.
Music, too, should be gentle or playful, but never loud or startling.
When you show your baby something new, they will need time simply to focus on it.
Once they have "found" the object you are presenting, only then can they study it and play with it.
Remember, just because a program seems slow and possibly boring for us as adults, it doesn't mean that it is too slow for your baby!

2) Participate in TV Viewing with Your Child

Remember that human interaction is a vital component to raising your baby.

Studies have shown that in environments where babies are deprived of social interaction, they suffer both physically and intellectually.
This applies to any activity you do during the day, from changing diapers to feeding your baby.
Talking, touching and making eye contact with your baby will help them thrive.
Studies have shown that babies understand your language well before they learn to speak, so just because your child doesn't answer you, doesn't mean they're not listening, and learning!

These principals of participation and interaction apply to watching television too.

Parents can optimize television viewing as an educational and enriching experience for their child by doing the following:

Ask questions to your child.
Name objects that appear on the screen.
Dance, clap or sing to the music soundtrack.
The programs you choose for your child's enrichment should provide ample "space" for you as parent to interact with your child.

Get creative with how to use the television.

Pause the video you're watching and take the time to point out or name things for your child.
As your baby becomes verbal, ask them questions and allow them time to "answer."
"Mute" the sound and narrate. The mute and pause buttons can become effective, interactive parenting tools!

3) Monitor Viewing

It is important to monitor not only what your child is watching, but how much.

Television unfortunately, for adults as well as children, can become a bad habit if over-used. To control this:

Set a specific time in your schedule when you and your child will watch television together.
Of course, parents certainly should not feel obliged to watch television daily, nor will your child be at a "loss" if they don't watch television on a regular basis.

In general, with regard to TV monitoring, short increments are the best rule.

Use "TV time" as you would any activity, such as reading a book or playing with a toy.
One sitting can be as short as five minutes.
For babies three to nine months, we believe a good "rule of thumb" for television activities is about 10 or 15 minutes a day.
For nine to eighteen months old, up to about 30 minutes a day is acceptable.
There is no need to worry about that one crazy day when your child watches more than thirty minutes of television.

Remember that babies can become over-stimulated.

It is important to watch for cues from your baby that it is time for a new activity:

If your baby looks away, starts to play with something else, gets fidgety, or cries, it is time for another activity.
Of course, if your baby becomes unhappy during any kind of stimulating play activity, television or otherwise, it's time to take a break.
Don't forget the basics when your child seems unhappy: It might be time for a nap, a feeding or a diaper change!

What not to watch:

News programming, sitcoms, anything meant for adults or even older kids can be detrimental to children. They absorb much more than we realize, even before they are verbal.
Having violent programming on in the background, even if they are not actually watching, we feel is detrimental.
Regarding kids' cartoons and other programs, including some classics that we might have watched as kids, watch for violence, an overabundance of cuts and fast action. For young children and with some programs, for older children, this is inappropriate.
Regarding feature movies for kids, we have yet to find new releases in the theatre appropriate for the "3 and Under" set. We find that the combination of the large screen, high volumes and dark atmosphere is usually not appropriate for this age group.

In short, television is a special experience that should be a relatively small part of a little one's day, but it should be a special experience nonetheless, and an opportunity to explore, learn and grow!

We at Baby Classroom are pleased to offer engaging educational DVDs and videos designed specifically for young children.

For more information about making television viewing a positive and educational experience for your child, read Media Literacy for the Youngest Viewers and Educational Television: It's Not An Oxymoron.