Children's Health Current Topics in Children's Health

What Parents Should Know About Kids and TV

Summary & Participants

When it comes to kids and TV - how much is too much?

Medically Reviewed On: August 12, 2008

Webcast Transcript

DR. BENARD DREYER, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS SPOKESPERSON: Early TV sets a pattern. The kids get used to the fact that they’re supposed to be watching TV a couple of hours a day, and, you know, by the time they’re five or six, they’re watching three or four hours of TV a day.

ANNOUNCER: So when it comes to TV and children – how much is too much?

DR. BENARD DREYER, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS SPOKESPERSON: The Academy of Pediatrics says, and I agree with it wholeheartedly, that children shouldn’t be watching really any TV prior to about two years of age. And no child should be watching, even older kids, should be watching more than one to two hours of TV a day.

ANNOUNCER: A 2007 academic study found that 40-percent of three-month olds were already watching three hours of television a day, and experts say that’s too young to get any benefit.

DR. BENARD DREYER, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS SPOKESPERSON: If you’re talking about three- to four-year-olds and educational TV, perhaps there’s some actual, some evidence that it might actually be helpful to them. But if you’re talking about young children, there is really good evidence that it doesn’t do anything for them because after all, it’s an image on a flat screen. It’s not a person really talking to them and responding to them.

ANNOUNCER: So, especially with children under two, the best approach may be to simply turn off the tube.

DR. BENARD DREYER, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS SPOKESPERSON: They need adults to play with them, to talk to them, to read to them. Or they need to interact with age-appropriate toys that will teach them something about manipulating objects and how things work. And watching an image on TV really does nothing for them but waste their time.

ANNOUNCER: Thanks for joining us on today’s Once Daily!