Perspectives of Parents in London Borough of Tower Hamlets - Essay Example

Effects of television on young children ‘Exploring the effect of television on young children’s lives: perspectives of parents in London Borough of Tower Hamlets’ Introduction In the last few years, the influence of television on the development of children has been characterized by rising attention as a result of the large amount of time spend by children on watching television. It is a reality that television has adapted the extra task of a socializing agent, with an average of three to five hours dedicated on a daily basis on TV watching. The practice however has been viewed as a medium through which children learn and experience several issues that they would not otherwise experience personally. Such children learn about values, morals, societal customs, and expectations as well as getting information regarding people from other ethnic communities and racial groups. Whereas adults and older children are more skeptical about the media content, the minors most probably perceive media content as a reality glimpse, and they are therefore more probable to be influenced by it. What parents must know Most television programs target children, a good percentage of them appearing to be educational oriented; teaching life sills and ABCs. However, parents should take much of their time to analyze such programs to get a clear understanding of whether the programs are really educational or if they have other related businesses. Parents also ought to know the right age to introduce their children to television. Since so much data has been collected concerning the negative and positive impacts of this issue on children, the first step for parents to take is to get to know of the facts, despite the impact that this knowledge will have on the daily routine of television watching in most families. Effects of television on children learning From the perspectives of parents in the London of Borough of Tower Hamlets, exposing children to television during the year of pre-school predicts academic outcomes at the age of adolescence. A significant note about this research is that it is the kind of television programs that actually matters. For instance, teens whose parents allowed them to watch more educative shows in their tender ages are more likely to place greater value on achievement, get higher grades, read more books, and demonstrate more creativity in the daily practices such as in composition writing. Contrary to this, teens who watched purely “entertainment” or violent programs in their tender ages tend to perform poorly in schools and get lower grades generally. In this sense therefore, parenting is a central factor in determining television watching and academic outcomes on the basis that parents who encourage their children to view educational programs have a higher likelihood of valuing education and supporting early learning in various ways. Research shows that children under two years cannot learn much more systematically from human interactions as they do from watching television. While kids may pay attention to video pictures, most television fails to give the responsive and interactive content that they need most. Even though television seems to capture infants and toddlers’ attention, little evidence shows that it facilitates meaningful learning. In most cases, television watching at a very young age is linked to lower levels of developing language. Just like other learning issues, most parents who control the viewing patterns of their children at early stages, most probably behave in ways that enhance children’s learning. In households where TV viewing makes up most of their leisure time have children who study less and have poor studying techniques. The effects of television on vocabulary, speech, and language According to a study carried out by Chonchaiya and Pruksananonda, to determine the relationship between language delays and television viewing on children less than two years, infants who began watching TV at age two or below were approximately six times more probable to have delays in language development. Additionally, the study found that children in this age bracket did not watch educational programs, but rather cartoons designed for older children. However, a majority of such children began watching television alone at only ten months. The study showed that neglectful parenting was a key factor linked to language delays. To determine the effects of television viewing on the vocabulary of a child, two authors, Linebarger and Walker documented their findings basing on a few programs. To them, Dora the Explorer and Blue’s Clues had positive impacts on expressive language, since onscreen actors in the two programs speak directly to minors. On the other hand, Sesame Street and Teletubbies had negative impacts on the language outcomes of children. These programs present several visual and musical inputs, inclusive of difficult words not easily processed by infants and do not offer enough support for comprehension. Their conclusion was that, even though some educational programs are beneficial to infant language acquisition, others are mere entertainment. In a similar research, three authors, Krcmar, Grela, and Kirsten stated that children learn more vocabulary from what adults speak as compared to programs like Teletubbies. According to this research, infants fail to know where to focus their attention when they come across programs charged with stimuli, since the sensory overload might be beyond their control. Miller et al, contradicts with this view and argues that television watching is a highly rewarding, which requires very little effort on young viewers’ part. It is logical to argue that the most credible methodology to use in establishing the effects of television on children is to draw conclusions based on the content type of the programs, rather than simply carrying out researches in a general way. Zimmerman and Christakis studied these effects by focusing on the content types of the programs; violent entertainment, non-violent entertainment, and educational-based programs. Of these contents, educational programs such as Barney and Flintstones were found to have cognitive and pro-social components. However, educational television viewed by children less than three years was not significantly correlated with attention difficulties, but violent and non-violent programs viewed prior to attaining three years correlated to attention difficulties five years later. Notably, a each hour spend daily on watching violent programs led to double the odds associated with attention in future and also inhibits pretend play and emotional regulation. Effects of television on the play patterns of a child According to Schmidt, children learn problem solving skills, learn cause and effect, and refine motor techniques during play. Pretend play also assists them in exploring social roles and representational abilities. Nevertheless, television is perceived to compete for cognitive resources essential to execute play schemes. Further, television may generally disrupt children in noisy environments. During his study, Schmidt observed children while playing with their toys in an enclosure for a period of one hour. In the first thirty minutes, there was a TV program playing in the background, but it was turned off for the last thirty minutes of playing. The outcome was that these children’s toy play was disturbed by background television, leading to shorter attention periods, less play, and shorter play episodes in overall. Influence of television viewing on children’s racial attitudes The cultivation theory states that television cultivates some aspects or beliefs about the world such as social behavior, structure, and norms through the way in which the universe is depicted. In this sense, the world portrayed on TV programs becomes the social reality of viewers. For those with little contact with individuals of other ethnic groups or races, television becomes a critical source of opinion formation and knowledge. As a result, the limited presence of racial minorities on TV can make viewers to perceive that these groups are of little significance. Further, the types of tasks minorities carry out most commonly endorse the view that they lack status and power. Children copy such status cues, which may influence intergroup attitudes. Race biases shown through nonverbal traits in TV shows can influence children’s racial attitudes. Despite the fact that the above illustrations are negative does not mean that there are no positive effects of watching television in children. Nevertheless, the harmful effects outdo the positive impacts, many research studies not demonstrating very satisfying reasons for a parent to put his or her young one in front of a TV. This calls for parents to be realistic enough not to keep their televisions in the closet till their children start schooling because the good side of it ought not be ignored. Quality children’s programs can teach children primary academic skills such as basic language skills, counting, good mannerism, addition, science fundamentals, as well as early reading skills. A child can get a chance to se features she might not be able to see in the daily scenes, such as distant lands, historical places, exotic animals, diverse lifestyles, and musical instruments. This exposes a child to the world beyond her neighborhood or home setting. Children get to learn basic social skills when they watch wholesome shows; how to play with their age metes. With extraordinarily careful selection patterns, a little time on TV can give a parent much needed downtime to catch up on chores that require adult-only attention. It should be noted that benefits of educational television are realized in those children with moderate exposure and those who had little skills before viewing the given programs. The idea here is that not all children who watch educational programs are guaranteed to good performance; rather, it is a practice which should be accompanied by certain conditions that may predict later academic performance. Parents should consider the concept that the advantages of educational programs are not equal for minors of varying ages (Anderson & Pempek, 2005). Parental controls in place to monitor children’s television viewing Parents are the basic forces for shaping TV usage by their children. It is not reasonable to stop children from watching television for fear of the outcomes, but measures can be taken by parents to monitor this routine. Since studies show that in environments where children are deprived of social interaction, they undergo intellectual and physical suffering, parents are participating in the viewing routine together with their young ones (Barr, Zack, Muentener & García, 2008). They ask questions, name objects appearing on the screen, sing or clap to the music soundtracks to optimize television watching as an enriching experience of play and for educational purpose. A single sitting can be as short as five minutes, just like the time scheduled for other activities. The question really is, how much should one permit a child to watch television per day? Basically, for infants three to nine months, a good period is between ten to fifteen minutes daily; for nine to eighteen months, thirty minutes a day is practical. For nineteen months to six years, a period of thirty minutes to one hour is preferred by most parents. Conclusion After conducting a survey on the effects of television viewing on children age between 0-6yeras, most parents seemed to have different views on the effects. According to the Borough of Tower Hamlets’ report, children are exposed to television viewing as early as three months. Some parents regard it as a safe activity to keep toddlers occupied as they perform their chores, while for some, it serves educational purposes such as learning alphabets, numbers, and foreign languages at tender ages. However, most researchers document that television viewing for children in this age bracket has negative impacts than the positive ones. Language, vocabulary, speech, attention, and general learning processes are negatively affected by television viewing among children. In this sense, all these expositions would be incomplete without acknowledgement that more research is significant and compelling. This is for the reason that media has become an issue of concern in very young children’s lives as well as the salient questions regarding its impacts on the cognitive, emotional, and social development of infants. Researches ought to be solution oriented in their aims, exploring particular approaches and populace who might gain from interventions. References Anderson, D., & Pempek T. (2005), Television and very young children.” American Behavioral Scientist Barr, R, Zack, E. Muentener, P., & García., A. (2008). Infants’ attention and responsiveness to television increases with prior exposure and parental interaction. Infancy. Chonchaiya, W., & Pruksananonda, C. (2008) Television viewing associates with delayed language development. Acta Pediatrica. Christakis, D., & Zimmerman, F.  (2009) Young children and media. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(8). Christakis, D., Zimmerman, F.,  Di Giuseppe, D., & McCarty, C. (2004). Early television exposure and subsequent attentional problems in children. Pediatrics. Courage, M., & Setliff, A. (2009). Debating the impact of television and video material on very young children: Attention, learning, and the developing brain. Society for Research in Child Development. DeLoache, J., & Chiong, C. (2009). Babies and baby media. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(8 Aboud, F. (2005). The development of prejudice in childhood and adolescence. In J. Dovidio, P. Glick,& L. Budman (Eds.),On the nature of prejudice: Fifty years after Allport. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. McKenna, M., & Ossoff, E. (1998). Age differences in children’s comprehension of a popular television program. Child Study Journal. 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