New research from the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute has found that preschoolers in home-based child care businesses watch 2.4 hours of television a day, compared to .4 hours per day at a child care center. These numbers may be significantly higher, according to the lead researcher, Dr. Dimitri Christakis, as it is a self-report, and providers may tend to underreport.
Children go home in the evenings to busy households where they are likely to watch two to three additional hours of television, thus five or more hours a day for a child who is awake only 12 hours a day. The providers in the study were from among the 45 states that license home-based child care, unlike Ohio where no regulation is required until a provider cares for seven or more children. I suspect that the situation is worse in homes where there is no oversight and no training.
The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages any television viewing, including videos or educational television, in the first two years of life and recommends a daily limit of one to two hours of quality programming for older children.
Child care should be an opportunity to enjoy imaginative play, develop social skills and participate in activities that develop cognitive abilities. Our community has long rejected simple custodial care since we learned that the majority of brain development takes place during the first years of life.
Christakis, the study’s lead researcher, said, "High quality preschool can make a very, very positive difference. We're so far from meeting that, that we really have a lot of work to do. Any time a TV is on, children speak less and adults interact with them less frequently.”
Public policy issues abound in this research: the need for parent education about choosing quality child care, the need for states like Ohio to regulate all child care businesses, and the importance of ongoing education for child care professionals. As Christakis said, “we really have a lot of work to do.”