TV and Infants/Toddlers

I found a study that showed that infants and young toddlers learn 6-8 fewer vocabulary words for every hour of TV they watch per day! I read about it beacuse of the Baby Einstein video recall last year. I wish I would have known about it then, because they were giving full price refunds for any BE dvd! Oh well. The article explained how Baby Einstein was sued by child advocate groups for claiming their dvds are educational... when in fact, they have been shown to damage children's verbal development!!! I couldn't believe when I read that because I have recently thought that BE may have contributed to Jackson's speech delay (and that's why Jake hasn't seen a single one and never will!) The characters and puppets don't talk at all, just squeal and a voice says words for the children to associate with a picture. But they never use sentances or anything. The article just validated my concerns! Jake doesn't sit down and watch TV but he is around when Jax is watching and I know it is going to become more difficult to keep him away from the TV as he gets older. I think I am going to have to cut back Jackson's TV time. We don't have actual TV channels, so I let him watch one movie per day, usually. So about an hour to an hour and a half. I think I need to stop doing that and start doing more creative things with him instead. I am going to try to get some preschool workbooks. I need to be more proactive and do crafts and things. Maybe movies will become a weekend treat. I don't know... just ideas.