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By Karen Springen
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"What is this?" asked the teacher, holding up a picture of the well-known "thinking chair" from the popular preschoolers' TV show "Blue's Clues." My daughter's hand shot up. "An armchair," she declared confidently. "That's a very adult response," the teacher replied, as Jazzy's classmates triumphantly shouted the "correct" answer.
Jazzy's brief moment of awkwardness grows from a decision that we, her parents, made a few years ago: not to watch television. But the teacher had assumed--logically--that all 20 of her students were "Blue's Clues" fans, like most young children in America. After all, every day a typical U.S. preteen views three hours and 14 minutes of TV. My husband and I didn't want that for our daughters, Jazzy, 4, and Gigi, 2. So when a babysitter asked whether Jazzy (then 18 months) could watch, my husband and I thought about it for a minute--and answered, "No."
Research seems to confirm our intuition: children glued to the TV for more than 10 hours each week are more likely to be overweight, aggressive and slower to learn in school. For that reason, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no "screen time" (whether TV, computers or videogames) for children under 2 and a maximum of two hours a day for older kids. We are confident in our choice. Our daughters spend a lot more time than they might otherwise playing with friends, swinging in the park, going to "story time" at the library and asking the Big Questions of life, such as "Why is the sky blue?"
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Going TV-less in America has its awkward moments. Earlier this year, Jazzy's ballet instructor asked her pint-size dancers, "What's your favorite TV show?" My daughter hadn't a clue. Well-meaning friends sometimes tell me that my girls may be missing out. There's so much good "educational" programming on these days, they say, in addition to the glop. Maybe, but I've checked the numbers. Most U.S. children are not watching such shows. Nielsen Media Research reports that in June, the top five TV shows among 2- to 12-year-olds were "Survivor II," "Malcolm in the Middle," "The Simpsons," "The Wonderful World of Disney" and "Pokemon." Friends also warn us that if television is barred to them now, the girls might later rebel and become TV addicts. I do sometimes worry: will the girls later go crazy for this forbidden fruit? If so, I've decided, so be it. I want my kids to grow up immersed in the real world, not "The Real World."
Perhaps this says more about me than TV. I was born in 1961, the year Newton Minow, then the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, called television a "vast wasteland." Maybe, but I loved it. My sister and I shared a first crush on a TV cartoon hero, Speed Racer. Watching "Bewitched" and "The Brady Bunch" and, later, soap operas was part of belonging, of participating in the social scene at school. Am I being selfish in not wanting the same for my children? Introducing TV would be a huge lifestyle change for our family. The girls are out of the house 90 percent of the time--going to museums, parks or just the driveway to draw with sidewalk chalk. If they suddenly started staying indoors to watch TV, would their well-muscled arms and legs change to mush? Would their questions about nature cease? Would I lose them, even in small measure, to TV's formidable competition? To be honest, I fear the girls would choose its hypnotic bright lights over reading a book in my lap.
Our way of living raises eyebrows from time to time. My father gave us a "Jump Jump Jazzy" video--which we've never watched. No home movies, even of our own kids? Babysitters sometimes balk. After explaining our no-TV rule to one, she called the next day to say she "wasn't comfortable" with that condition of employment. Sometimes we feel a bit like Martians, the folks from Elsewhere. "I've been telling my friends about you!" Jazzy's art teacher told me one day. Miriam Baron, who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on public education, reassures me: "You're getting your child to be creative, to be an independent learner." But child psychiatrist Elizabeth Berger, author of "Raising Children With Character," warns of trouble ahead: "You're really making a leper out of your child."
Ouch. So far, at least, Jazzy doesn't seem to feel that way. Just last week, while friends at her day camp settled down to watch a film about butterflies, Jazzy declared that she wasn't allowed to join them. So the counselor took her aside to read some books on butterflies. My husband and I felt a pang. On the one hand, it was a science movie. On the other, Jazzy loved the books and chattered excitedly about them that night. Rather than considering herself an outcast, she felt special because she had received so much extra attention. When was the last time any TV show or movie made you feel that way?
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