Screen Time By Lisa Guernsey

As a student teacher I've been told that children under two should never watch television, that it damages their eyesight and their cognitive development. I was keen to find out the facts. Lisa Guernsey is a journalist, rather than an academic or a medical professional, but her book is based on academic studies and independent research. Here are some of her findings:

Children will not turn into zombies sitting in front of of TV, but if they watch a lot of TV that is aimed at older children (e.g. toddlers watching Power Rangers and Spongebob) it can affect their cognitive development.

Sitting in front of the TV doesn't make children obese, but a lot of the advertising during children's TV is for unhealthy food. TV characters are also used to market unhealthy food, so a child who loves Dora the Explorer is more likely to pester for unhealthy food with Dora on the packet.

Children under 12 months are not learning from TV (though they're not being harmed either). When shows like the Teletubbies are cut into 2 second slices and jumbled up, babies under 12 months can't tell the difference between that and the real show.

All TV is not equally educational. What children watch matters. The most educational shows for preschoolers include Sesame Street, Blues Clues and Barney. Children can't follow anything that keeps cutting from scene to scene, has flashbacks, or has a complicated storyline.

Children will gain more from watching a TV show if you watch it with them, discuss what is happening, and follow it up with hands-on activities that explain the same ideas. So if the number of the day on Sesame Street is four, you can encourage the child to write the numeral four and count four things after the show.

The danger in TV and other screen based activities is that children miss out on the things they might be doing if they weren't watching. A child watching a movie in the back of the car is missing out on everything they might see if they looked out of the window. A child sat indoors is missing out on activities that might develop gross and fine motor skills or social skills.

Every child is different. Some children might be scared by a programme that others love, so you need to keep an eye on what they're watching and how they're reacting. Swiper in Dora the Explorer frightens a lot of children.

Background TV is more of a problem than foreground TV. If the TV is on all the time children are being exposed to adult content (e.g. the news) that they are not ready to see. Children struggle to filter out the background noise of the TV. This affects their play and their language development as they don't hear everything their parents or siblings are saying to them. This is the same if the radio is on all the time or music is playing.

Guernsey talks about adults taking children age 3 and under to horror movies (rather than getting a babysitter). This does no harm to a baby who is asleep, but can cause anxiety problems in toddlers. They are not old enough to differentiate between real and unreal. One child for example, knew that Big Bird from Sesame Street wasn't real, but thought it was a smaller bird dressed up!

Children learn best while interacting with an adult who is physically present. You can watch a TV show or play an app, but you really can't beat sitting down with a child and a quality picture book, asking the child questions and pointing things out.