by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on February 17, 2012
Michael Rich, MD, MPH
Michael Rich, MD, MPH, is Children’s Hospital Boston’s media expert and director of Children’s Center on Media and Child Health. Take a look at his blog archive or follow him on Twitter @CMCH_Boston
Q: My 5-year-old daughter does not like TV that involves conflict. She has no desire to see a Disney movie and even gets anxious when a kid gets lost on Veggie Tales. She’ll watch Blues Clues, Yo Gabba Gabba, and Barney but has no desire to watch the shows for her own age. When a movie is shown in CCD or Kindergarten, she gets anxious and sometimes starts crying. Will her inability to distinguish reality from fantasy resolve with age? Or is she an overly anxious, sensitive child?
-Facing Fear, in Chicago, IL
A: Dear Facing Fear,
It’s wonderful that you’re observing so closely how your child responds to the media she’s using. Every child is different. Knowing your daughter and watching her as closely as you do will help you make the best decisions for her.
Because children younger than 7 or 8 can’t reliably tell what’s real and what’s not, things that don’t seem scary to you or to older siblings may terrify them. Even though cartoons are marketed for young children, most aren’t really designed with their developmental stage in mind. Conflict and suspense sell tickets to adults, whose brains understand that it’s not real, but children experience these things in a much more direct and primal way.
Many kids are encouraged or learn to cover the anxiety that these images provoke. Your daughter may simply be more transparent in her responses than others her age, and even if she does seem more sensitive than other children, that can be positive, too.
In any case, it’s likely that her fear will resolve with time, but don’t push her to achieve this developmental milestone earlier than she’s ready. That would simply encourage her pretend she is not feeling what she is feeling, which will make her more anxious in the long run. In the meantime, ask teachers and other caregivers to find alternative activities for her rather than forcing her—and peers who may be better at hiding their anxiety—to view TV or videos that trigger her very normal stress response to anxiety-provoking images.
Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on January 26, 2012
Michael Rich, MD, MPH
Michael Rich, MD, MPH, is Children’s Hospital Boston’s media expert and director of Children’s Center on Media and Child Health. Take a look at his blog archive or follow him on Twitter @CMCH_Boston
Q: I have an son who’s 11 and a daughter who’s 9½, and for many years, they have sat close to the TV when watching. I have asked them to sit farther away, and they do move back maybe a foot…but they always go back to viewing the show close up, even if the screen is a 40” color flat screen. Any studies that show why? Any concerns? My wife and I sit 8 to 10 feet from the TV.
-Up Close and Personal, in Rochester Hills, MI
A: Dear Up Close,
Concern about sitting close to TV screens, like concern about reading in low light, is founded more on what our parents told us when we were little than on research. The worries about sitting close dates from the (not so long ago) time when TVs were actually “tubes”—cathode ray tubes, that is—and people were uncertain about how the cathode radiation emitted might affect a viewer’s eyes. Today’s TVs flatscreens only emit the light you see, which removes that concern. And there’s no evidence that sitting close to either kind of screen hurts your eyes.
That said, the fact that your children sit so close to the TV may be a sign that they are near-sighted and that this distance is where they best resolve the pixels of color, light, and darkness into a coherent image. Bring them in for an eye exam to see whether they need glasses.
If their eyes are fine, then they probably sit close because they like having the screen fill their peripheral vision. That shouldn’t cause any problems. Just make sure that they aren’t staring at screens all the time—that can cause eye strain and, of course, will take time away from all of the other activities they need to accomplish in a day to be happy and healthy.
Enjoy your media and use them wisely,
The Mediatrician®
by Childrens Hospital Boston staff on January 29, 2010
Media expert Michael Rich, MD, MPH, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston, answers your questions about media use. Last week, he discussed a report detailing just how much media kids are using.
Here’s this week’s question:
Q: In your NPR Parents’ Journal interview, you stated that children under the age of 30 months do not learn anything about language from TV programs, but I disagree. My 17-month-old daughter is not allowed to watch entertainment TV, but since she was 9 months old, she has watched a baby signing language DVD series about 3 times a week. Now she knows about 80 signs (and about 60 spoken words), and learning sign language as a family has greatly enhanced our relationships because she can tell us what she needs without crying and throwing a tantrum. I feel strongly that the 1-2 hours of media exposure a week are making her toddlerhood much less frustrating and are worth whatever negative effects are possible. I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter.
-Serious about Signing, Baltimore, MD Full story »
