What are the effects of watching television during infancy?
The arrival of a new baby will change the lives of parents and siblings differently. In the 0-1 age period, babies are dependent on the mother. They report their hunger and soiling by crying. The concerned parents understand the messages given by the child and meet the needs of the child. They respond emotionally and socially to their children. Thus, a relationship of trust develops between mother and baby. The baby now knows that his needs will be met on time, and he cries less or becomes restless. In the 0-1 age period, the child informs the mother of her own needs in terms of nutrition, but the mother determines the child's eating style. In the absence of external stimuli, the baby should be fed in a close relationship between the mother and the baby. Sometimes, babies who eat less or less than their mothers may be fed in front of television and advertisements. Spending time in front of the television means that the baby is deprived of the mother's facial expressions, gaze, voice, that is, the emotional and social stimulus and love that the mother will provide to her. In this case, the baby will have difficulty in receiving the hunger stimuli coming from his own body, and will be fed with distraction-television indexed. This will cause the next meal to continue in a similar and difficult way.
In this period, the baby starts to develop social relationships, babbling and saying single words. The child's acquisition and development of both social and other skills will be in proportion to the emotional response of the caregiver. In other words, the spelling of the babbling baby and the spelling of the baby who speaks single words depend on the parents spending time with the child, responding to him and being a model, and doing exercises together. Children who spend a lot of time in front of the television during this period will have difficulties in terms of both social relations and language development, and will not be able to show the expected development appropriate for their age. For this reason, parents should spend as much time with their babies as possible and should not leave them in front of the screen. Keeping babies away from television and not letting them watch television is important for healthy development.
The time children watch television is age-related. Before the age of three, it is important that children are kept away from television in order for their development and skills to continue in a healthy way. Staying in front of television for one or two hours in this period will cause developmental problems (such as problems in speaking, appropriate non-verbal transmission, inability to use gestures and facial expressions correctly, problems in adapting to social environments, inability to respond appropriately to peers and adults, and problems in learning skills appropriate for their age). p>
After the age of three, it is a period in which developmental characteristics such as social relations, recognizing the outside world, learning and thinking continue and new gains are acquired. This period is also a period when children's imaginations are more developed and it is difficult to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Another important feature of this period is modeling. Again, playing games during this period is very important. By playing games, children expand their imaginations, acquire identity roles, rehearse this (playing the role of a boy or a girl in a game, being a parent) and recognize the rules of the outside world. For all these reasons, both the time they spend watching television and the programs they watch are important.
Violent programs may cause children to display more violent behavior. They may also want to imitate fictional heroes on television. Since children think concretely during this period, they may want to identify with the imaginary hero and imitate him in a dangerous way. They may think that Superman really flew with his cloak, and that they could fly if they wore something similar. Again, programs with fear content can increase the child's anxiety level. Spending a lot of time in front of the screen will affect their socialization, verbal skills, establishing friendships, developing the ability to play appropriate games with their peers, modeling their parents, and developing a true-false value system. During this period, families should allow them to watch television for about an hour a day and determine which programs their children will watch.
When babies and children watch TV, they manage their perceptions only on TV and learn. It is stated that they have experienced a significant loss during this most important period in which they are in the process of growing up. It has also been found that watching a lot of television has a negative effect on the child's socialization, attention and learning skills. Above, I have mentioned how being in front of the screen negatively affects the development of children for both infancy and pre-school children. Children's social interaction, verbal skills, non-verbal skills, thinking, learning, modeling, imitation and behavior are affected. In order to avoid this effect, parents should control both the time their children spend in front of the screen and the programs they watch.
What can be done to reduce children's TV watching?
For children who are in front of many screens, parents should first of all remember that the child's decision to determine the TV watching time and programs is theirs. In other words, children watch a lot of television because their parents allow it or do not supervise it. The negative impact of this on their development will also have a negative impact on their course success after the school starts. However, this process should be tried to be handled in a consensus with the child, not by going too direct. For this, parents should talk with their children about TV viewing hours and programs. They should say that they will limit this, and they should ask the child's opinion about the time of watching television and the content of the program. Again, for a child who watches a lot of television, it is important that they fill the hours they watch television with another activity while the limitation is imposed, and that they make the decision together with the child. Parents can find alternative activities or ask the child to find them. For younger children, they can go for rewards when the child agrees with the decision they made together.
What should parents pay attention to when watching TV with their children?
Mom and dad often do not notice the hours when children stay in front of the screen. Observing and realizing how much time their children spend watching television in a day they can start. If their children spend more time in front of the television than usual, they should start looking for solutions. For children in preschool and pre-school period, they should also pay attention to the content of the programs they watch. In particular, they should know that the tendency to violence is a learned condition as well as genetic and hormonal reasons. The reasons that lead children to violence are glorifying, justifying, normalizing violence, presenting the victim's pain as if it does not exist, films with violent content far from empathy, impunity or not being criticized in violent programs on television. It is also a known situation that children take the people they heroize as a model and want to behave like them. If perpetrators of violence are heroized in movies, they can be expected to be imitated by children. Children tend to exhibit behaviors they witness visually. In these respects, it is important to keep children away from violent programs.
Families should be a model for their children in watching television. Especially the 3-6 year old child is ready to model the characteristics and habits of the parents. For difficult children, families should not use television as a calming method. Again, families should not turn the child over to the television to rest when they are tired. Families should determine the watching time (daily) and content of their television. Children will learn to follow this rule when they define it as a clear rule and do not compromise. When the rule is stretched from time to time, the child will force the family to bend the rule again, and try ways to stretch the family's boundaries. Working parents, grandparents or caregivers taking care of their children should control the time they leave the television on and the programs they watch. In particular, they should try to watch programs containing abstract concepts together. From time to time, during the program, what the child understands from the concepts should be investigated and information should be given about the wrong ones (this should not be done frequently, spending too much didactic time can bore the child). families involved in violence Children should be kept away from the programs. It should also set an example for the child in reading books, going to the cinema and going to the theater.
How can children decide whether a program is real or not? What are the dangers that await children who compare themselves to the cartoon characters they watch?
Children up to the age of eight and nine think concretely. They do not understand abstract concepts the way adults do. So it's like if Superman can fly when he's wearing a cape, then he can fly when he's wearing a cape. If the hero's toy is taken and he shoots, and this is presented as the right thing, then the child learns in this way. Again, the age of 3-6 is the period of modeling the parents and the cartoon characters they watch. Just as children model their parents' identities (the daughter tries to emulate her mother, they learn right and wrong, morality from them and adopt them as a part of their own identity), they can also adopt the characteristics of the front by imitating these heroes. These can sometimes be the right things, but when the wrong things happen, they can create problems for the child. Therefore, they may exhibit dangerous behaviors that they cannot predict the end of. They may want to be like them and conflict with their friends and parents in daily life.
What is the effect of advertisements on babies and children? Children are generally attracted to advertisements. Is there a specific reason for this?
Time spent watching advertisements is part of watching television. There may be situations where children like to watch advertisements, especially when they watch it. As I mentioned above, this means time that is not spent with parents, no games, no emotional and social stimuli. Sometimes parents can leave their children in front of the television because they are silent, and sometimes children with poor social development spend more time in front of the television-advertisement. At the same time, since the advertising content is aimed at children in a way that supports consumption, it may lead to the development of features that are constantly demanding, whose requests are received, and are not satisfied. This leads to the development of the characteristics that are less sharing, more egocentric, self-centered, not paying attention to the rules of the other person during the game, and failing to establish appropriate social and peer relations.
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