Pediatricians To Parents: Say Good-Bye To Baby Einstein | CommonHealth

October 20, 2011 at 7:05 pm (Global Events, News and politics)
Tags: AAP, age-appropriate, babies, child, interactive, learning, Parent, pediatric, recommendations, socialization

Pediatricians To Parents: Say Good-Bye To Baby Einstein | CommonHealth.

yoshimov/flickr  –  AAP:

Babies under two should not be watching TV

A new edict from the nation’s pediatricians makes things perfectly clear: babies and toddlers under 2 should engage in unstructured play, not in screen time, whether its “educational” programming or not.

Here’s the news release from the American Academy of Pediatrics, meeting in Boston this week:

In a recent survey, 90 percent of parents said their children under age 2 watch some form of electronic media. On average, children this age watch televised programs one to two hours per day. By age 3, almost one third of children have a television in their bedroom. Parents who believe that educational television is “very important for healthy development” are twice as likely to keep the television on all or most of the time.

The policy statement, “Media Use by Children Younger Than Two Years,” will be released Tuesday, Oct. 18, at the AAP National Conference & Exhibition in Boston and will be published in the November 2011 issue of Pediatrics (published online Oct. 18).  (Read Full Article)