Al Mouler cites some major issues kids face when parents put TV’s in their kids rooms (BTW. the full article says parents “allow” but I think that this term is a copout).
Some of the information indicates that in 2002, the journal “Pediatrics” reported that preschool children with bedroom TVs were more likely to be overweight. In October, the journal “Obesity” suggested that the risk might be highest for boys. In a study among French adolescents, boys with a bedroom television were more likely than their peers to have a larger waist size and higher body fat and body mass index. The French study also showed, not surprisingly, that boys and girls with bedroom TVs spent less time reading than others.
It seems that when parents put TV’s in kids rooms it will damage them in significant ways. Does your child have a TV in his or her bedroom?
I promised myself that I would not blog on here again for a while, but in hopes someone might actually read this here goes……
It seems that you are making a judgment call and telling all of us in one sweeping generalization that we have made a bad mistake that is damaging to our kids if we allow (yes allow) TVs to be in our children’s rooms.
A disputable matter and not an absolute. If your kids are obese blame yourselves as parents and not the TV you allowed to be placed in their rooms.
As a parent I am more concerned and monitor what they are allowed to watch and the time of day they are allowed to watch vs. their body weight.
The obese topic seems to be a round about “talking point” to strengthen the point of view that TVs in kid’s rooms are just bad and wrong to some people (no matter what) because of what can be viewed when parents are not around.
As a parent of two teens we choose to monitor and control what our kids watch and when they can watch. They also are involved with activities outside the home such as a twice a week personal trainer and some gymnastics.
It is up to the parents and not others to make this call.
I’m not sure I buy into the obesity connection. Certainly if a person (young or old) spends an inordinate amount of time in front of a television, no matter what room its in, they’re more likely to be out of shape. But I don’t think the television in the kids room is the main issue where childhood obesity is concerned.
However, I am concerned about monitoring what my children are exposed to (as CA says). In my case, I feel it would be more difficult to do that with 24 hour access to television in their rooms. There are televisions available in the open, family areas of the house that they can watch so we have not allowed them to have one their rooms as well, nor will we probably.
Along those same lines, I don’t plan to allow them to have internet access in their rooms either. As with the television, they can access the internet from the family areas of the house and get whatever they need along those lines.
C.A.
My thrust was not to say that anytime a TV is in the room it is always bad and a sign of poor parenting. I was simply citing statistical evidence that shows that there seems to be a correlation between unhealthy living and a TV in a child’s room. This is why I said, “It seems that when parents put TV’s in kid’s rooms it will damage them in significant ways.”
I am not making a “judgment call” as much as I am citing evidence that indicates a need to use good judgment.
Thanks for helping me make this clarification.
I agree with Larry in that I think the TV/obesity arguement is coincidental. I believe that TV is the same as anything – all things in moderation. While a TV in a childs room can be a bad thing, it will only have a negative effect if the parent lets it. A child raised to be active and sporty is unlikely to watch bedtime TV as they would be too tired!
Thanks for the clarification Dan…hope you are healing well after your “surgery to remove your wisdom…teeth” LOL!
When you wrote….
“It seems that when parents put TV’s in kid’s rooms it will damage them in significant ways”
The words “will damage” seemed like an absolute and is where my response came from.
We limit the time of day our kids can watch TV in their rooms and what they can watch. TV still has some standards at certain hours of the day unlike the Internet. The Internet will not be going into our children’s rooms. I agree with that unless there are strong blocking tools installed that would only make using the Internet a hassle. We have computers in common rooms instead.
Ironically I just had to go upstairs and reset my daughter’s satellite TV box as she just told me that she had not been able to watch it for about 2 months. 2 months! That definitely does not sound like she is too dependent on it and that is nice! 🙂
I like what Chilli wrote about the kids being active and too tired to watch anyway.
What if our kids stayed inside all day and read their bibles? Definitely a good thing, but if they were not active or eating right? Would they also get obese. 😉 Something to think about in light of this “study”.
I don’t see a reason to limit these findings to children — it seems that all the findings apply to adults as well.
We dropped cable over a year ago and the only negative we’ve found is that people don’t like to babysit for us. 🙂
You and Regina were already pretty thin before you dropped your cable. 😉
Guiroo, good point regarding TV and people in general. It has been said (I believe by Ravi Zacharias) that TV has done more to shape the conscience of America than anything else. While children may certainly be more malleable they are not the only ones being strongly influenced.