Young Children and Electronic Media

   Young Children and Electronic Media

Should babies and toddlers be exposed to television and other screens?  TV programs, DVDs, computer games, and Web-based programming are certainly marketed as entertaining and educational for young children. Children are often exposed to secondhand media as well. But the American Academy of Pediatrics, www.healthychildren.org, in their policy statement released in October, 2011, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/10/12/peds.2011-1753,  "discourages media use by children younger than 2 years"  and states “Unstructured playtime is more valuable for the developing brain than any electronic media exposure”.

Learn about making smart media choices and more in these books:

The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World by Susan Linn, 2008

Children and the Entertainment Industry, Karen Miller, book editor, 2010

Cinderella Ate My Daughter; Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie Culture, by Peggy Orenstein, 2011

Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, by Stuart Brown with Christopher Vaughn, 2009

Plugged-In Parenting; How to Raise Media-savy Kids with Love, Not War, by Bob

Waiszewski, 2011