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| No TV for toddlers, paediatricians urge |
| Culture |
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Canada’s paediatricians will soon be urging parents never to let children under two watch any amount of television, the Montreal Gazette reported. The new policy, which the Canadian Paediatric Society is expected to unveil shortly, will amend the current policy that recommends children of all ages be limited to no more than two hours of TV-viewing a day. Dr. Danielle Grenier, the society’s director of medical affairs, said the update is based on studies published since 2003, when the existing guidelines were released. That research suggests infants who watch TV are more likely to be slower at learning how to talk, have a shorter attention span and a delayed cognitive development compared to other children. “In the first years, think of how many things you have to learn. You have to learn to sit, you have to learn to walk, you have to learn to climb, you have to learn to talk – all of these things in your normal development,” Grenier told the Gazette. “All of these things are [done] better when you have a live person smiling at the child and interacting with the child.” The society also recommends that parents set the ground rules for television-viewing before their child turns one, and that “healthy viewing habits should be established in the second year of life.” |
