Video screen time has no educational benefits for young children and parents of infants and toddlers should limit the time their children spend in front of televisions, computers, self-described educational games and even grown-up shows playing in the background, so warned the American Academy of Pediatrics in a report published in The New York Times.

In particular, the report references recent research on language development, that the more language comes from real people, the more language the child understands and produces later on; that parents use of media is distracting to playtime; and that young children learn a lot more efficiently from real interactions – people and things.

The Waldorf School of Philadelphia have been helping parents navigate the concern of media use and child development since its inception fifteen years ago. The school has a clear media policy (www.phillywaldorf.com/parents) and each year parents participate in a Media Awareness Month, the goal of which is to help support parents conscious use of media with a possible outcome of lowering media use in the home on an ongoing basis.

For the full New York Times article, published on October 18th, 2011 Click Here

Tags: American Association of Pediatrics, Benedict Carey, Media and Child Development, New York Times

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