TV Turnoff Week April 23 to 29

It’s time to start preparing yourself, your partner and the kids for a week of conversation, reading, volunteering, activity, artwork and imagination. The Center for Screen Time Awareness is  the force behind TV Turnoff Week from April 23rd to 30th.

In the past 18 months, we’ve seen the rise of a television network that caters to babies, alarming reports that too many babies are watching too much TV and research that links TV consumption to rising rates of obesity.

Here are the top five most interesting research-based observations about TV (in no particular order):

5. If you are non-caucasian, fat, short, disabled in any way, have acne, are divorced, posess imaginitive flair, unrestrained originality or have never had plastic surgery, chances are you won’t see yourself represented on TV. According to research, TV programming is all about the status quo.

4. Too much TV is often a symptom of too many TVs. Children with televisions in their bedrooms have a host of academic and physical problems.

3. Children whose TV time is reduced see fewer ads and, as a result, spend less time pestering their parents to buy them more toys!

2.  Watching TV may increase the risk of a vulnerable child developing ADD.

1.  The more TV a young child watches, the less well they perform on tests that measure normal cognitive development.

In our house, we’re too busy to watch TV 2 or 3 days a week, but there are other days when I am too busy not turn on the TV for the kids. Still I’ve noticed that my 4 year-old has stopped playing with his toys while he watches and I know that’s a bad sign. I think we’re going to give this a try. I don’t know if we’ll last a whole week, but I’d like to see how little we can get by with.