Want your toddler to learn new words? Turn off the TV

An alternative interpretation could be: the more we infantilize children's programming, the stupider we will make our children.

My son did not grow up with the Teletubbies, who are non-verbal, nor the horribly castrated modern Sesame Street featuring Elmo who speaks in pigeon English. He watched children's programming where people spoke proper English in full sentences, documentaries and movies and his language acquisition skills never fail to blow my mind.

Of course, we also spoke to him all the time and included him in the verbal life of our family.

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Gee, another post from Christina bashing tv. Imagine that?

I totally agree with mamaloo and her opinion of your average children's tv show. Characters like Teletubbies don't really talk so why would someone use that show and others like it to study the influence they have on a child's language? They babble and grunt and make other silly little noises or just flash pictures across the screen . There is very little in the way properly spoken English.

I have commented before on the fact that I live in a non-English speaking country and regularly let my kids watch English DVDs and English tv kid shows, ones where the characters speak proper English in full sentences with correct grammar. They have learned unbelievable amounts of language from this, along with me speaking to them of course. I really hate the implication in some of your posts that parents just dump their kids in front of a tv and then ignore them.

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Well, there ARE plenty of parents who DO just plop their kids in front of the TV and ignore them. Of course many don't, and my guess would be the kind of person who reads a parenting blog is not generally going to be that type. But I've known those who do. (Was married to one, as a matter of fact, but that's a different story.)

I was seriously accused of harming my sons by NOT getting them Baby Einstein videos and letting them watch TV from birth. (We don't own a TV, only a portable DVD player.) My cousin, an elementary teacher, was one of those who started putting her baby in front of "educational" videos from birth. And then was shocked when her daughter was behind in a lot of areas (including speech).

So this kind of advice CAN be helpful, although I'd guess that those who need to hear it won't listen anyway.

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Multiple studies have now shown that TV at a young age delays language. And I believe these studies have discovered something important. But I still don't know how to reconcile this with the kids I've seen (myself included) that had lots of TV, but have above average language skills. I don't recall how much TV my older daughter had, but it was a fair amount on a daily basis, and she was verbal early, and reads at the highest level tested for her class.

I recently decided to stop my toddler from watching TV, with the exception of SuperY on PBS. I swear this show can teach any kid their letters.

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Our tv is on all the time, but I talk to ds like he is an intelligent human not a dumb dumb. Many people including his teacher always tell me how well he speaks. He uses real words and speaks very well for his age. When he went to his meet the teacher interview at 3 she was very impressed.
I think the issue is the dumbing down of the shows. People are treating kids like they are dumb and won't understand big words. But then we are expecting them to read before they get to kindergarden.
Then you add in praising them all the time and it is a nightmare.

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