Is it okay for my baby or toddler to watch TV?

Описание: So a lot of parents come to me with concerns about "How can I maximize the development of my child, and what can I do to really help sort of build those brain skills?" And it sounds kind of interesting, but one of the biggest mistakes that we can make as parents is early television exposure. Starting at around 6 months, there are a lot of video products that come on the market that emphasize education for infants - things that say that they can help babies learn to talk or read or something like that. However, there has been a lot of research that has shown that babies' brains don't learn well from television, so they're actually not a very good mechanism for learning for babies.

But more importantly, watching television has the potential to change some of those brain pathways. And what happens is that if you watch television from too young of an age, those developing brain pathways actually change to look like pathways consistent with Attention Deficit Disorder, or ADD. So a lot of Attention Deficit Disorder is definitely genetic, but some of it can be learned and can be environmental based off of what's going on in your surroundings. And that is why The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends no television, even the educational kind, for children who are less than 2 years old, because we don't have any information about how much is too much, what is safe, what isn't, but we do know that television can actually be the gift that keeps on giving at that young age. It can actually cause some permanent changes in your brain structure that can be harmful in the future. So it is always my recommendation to families to do their very best for no television for kids younger than 2. Even the educational stuff that sounds really great, it's not as good as face to face time with mom and dad, it's not as good as looking around and exploring your world, it's not as good as figuring things out, banging those toys together, throwing those toys around - that's actually a much more valuable learning experience for kids.