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The Effects of Watching TV
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle
Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (TRUCE; www.truceteachers.org),
points out that children who watch a lot of TV and movies tend to:
Perform worse in school:
- They spend less time reading
- They have shorter attention spans
- Their vocabulary is not as highly developed
Be more overweight:
- They snack excessively while watching TV
- They see food in programs and ads that promote unhealthy eating
choices
- They tend to exercise less
Act the way TV characters act:
- Children as young as 1 year old learn behaviors from TV
- Children imitate actions and scripts from TV programs instead of
creating their own play ideas
See ads that are harmful to them:
- Children under the age of 6 cannot tell the difference between
and ad in a show and a show
- Children are encouraged to nag their parents for things they see
on TV.
See violence as an acceptable form of play and way to settle
conflicts.
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Type of Care May impact Achievement
To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.
Christina Baldwin
The rise of welfare reform led many parents to rely on their family, friends, and neighbors for their child care. A study released in August, 2005 by Professors Raquel Bernal of Northwestern University and Michael Keane of Yale University show that this informal care may negatively influence a child’s mental development. Center-based or formal care, however, may offset negative effects of a mother’s reduced contact time with her child. According to the study’s authors, "I would say that the crucial thing to take from the paper is that separation from the mother can be detrimental for children, but mothers can partially offset this by choosing the appropriate type of daycare." Due to welfare reform in 1996, many mothers were forced to reduce their contact time with their children in order to fulfill work requirements.
The authors collected data from 1,519 single mothers who had children between 1990 and 2000 and, thus, were subject to the new work requirements. They found that, overall, the mother’s choice of child care during the first year of life did not seem to affect the child’s later cognitive development. However, children placed in an informal care situation after the first year of life scored 3.5% lower on achievement tests than children who were placed in some type of formal care or remained at home with their mothers. Additionally, they found that after the first year, each full year of informal care was associated with a 2.9% reduction in the child’s achievement test scores. Children who were placed in formal child care settings for equivalent periods of time did not show any significant reduction in scores.
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Motheread©
College Training Opportunity for Parents
Spring Semester 2007
Mother /Father Read is a family literacy program designed for adults who want to improve both their reading and parenting skills.
- Participants will meet with Mother/Father Read discussion leaders and learn how to read children’s book together, discuss and practice different methods of reading to children
- Participants learn about child development, early childhood education and parenting skills that are consistent with their values and goals
- Participants will keep the books to read to their children and increase their home libraries.
- For more info call Harriet @ 787-6562
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