Prime Time Distraction

The American Academy of Pediatrics has discouraged TV watching before the age of 2 for some time, but a new study really drives home the WHY.

We know that brain development from Birth-Age 5 is HEAVILY dependent on adult to infant/child communication.

Apparently when the TV is on either for the child or the adult, those vital communications are not happening.

Ina study led by Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute and professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine...

Over 300 2-month-olds to 4-year-olds wore recording devices on random days recording everything they heard or said for 12-16 hours. The results were startling...

For every hour of TV being watched or playing in the same room, there was a decrease of 770 words spoken by the child's caregiver and a decrease in the child's vocalizations.

"Some of these reductions are likely due to children being left alone in front of the television screen," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, "but others likely reflect situations in which adults, though present, are distracted by the screen and not interacting with their infant in a discernible manner."

Lesson here? Even playing in the background, TV can distract us from crucial communication with our children.

Reading aloud to your children allows you to naturally increase bonding and communication and to use a whole new set of words. Those words are essential to those wee brains growing strong and healthy.

READ MORE in LiveScience.com Article.