(Relaxnews) – The takeaway for parents? If you’re not watching television, turn it off.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, all that background noise may lower the quality of your interactions with your children and lower a kid’s performance on tasks that require concentration. Additionally, the television can diminish a child’s focus during playtime.
Researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, University of Amsterdam, and the University of Iowa reached their conclusions after conducting telephone surveys with more than 1,400 English-speaking households.
Additional findings revealed that children living in single-parent households were exposed to more background television than those in two-parent households. Also, infants and toddlers were exposed to about five hours and 30 minutes a day of background TV, compared to nearly two hours and 45 minutes for kids ages six to eight. Their findings were pubished on Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Many pediatricians advise that children aged two and younger not watch any television at all, with older kids advised to spend no more than two hours a day in front of a TV, computer, or other electronic device.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/09/26/peds.2011-2581.abstract