Lisa Guernsey: Into the Minds of Babes

Lisa Guernsey’s novel highlights current research in the arena of young children’s television viewing. Much of the research is interesting, and can provide a parent with some insight into how to approach television with their child. Lisa emphasizes that moderation is the most important factor when children are allowed to spend time in front of the television, and that by no means is it a replacement for good parenting.

Unfortunately, Lisa interprets much of the research as justification to place a child in front of the television occasionally as a way to find respite from the rigors of child rearing. She forgets to answer the question ‘what is the benefit of placing a child in front of the television at all?’ Recounting research that indicates moderate viewing of age appropriate television might not be harmful to a child does little to get to the real issue–is television worth a child’s time?

Guernsey states that the wrong kinds of television (age inappropriate, background noise heavy, scary, violent, etc.) definitely do interrupt children’s natural play patterns. That being the case, why take the chance at all? Most often the studies Guernsey recounts indicate that interaction and play time are the most important things to early child development. Why risk affecting the pillars of child development? Television is not an obviously productive medium. Why introduce a mediocre tool into a child’s life at all. I believe Guernsey’s answers to these questions to be a form of justification for continuing to let her daughters watch television. In the process she has indicated that some television might not be so bad for other people’s kids. Is ‘not so bad’ really good enough?

I found the research indicating that children’s abilities with language are severely derailed by background television noise horribly alarming. Looking back on my sister’s early development, I can see how this had terrible consequences for her. She watched way too much television as a child–mainly because my parents were much busier when she came around. As a toddler she had the hardest time with language and has always had a slight difficulty hearing the way she should be able to. My parents let her regulate her own television viewing time, and that was probably not to her advantage. Guernsey’s reporting of this study is quite meaningful for society, but if this research proves to be true over time, why run the risk of doing harm to a child by placing them in front of a television at all? Guernsey does not spend enough time on this point, and I think a book with the best interests of a child in mind would do more to explore this very concept.

Television, more than anything else, is a passive medium. It provides for peaks and dips in children’s attention and cannot be compared to uninterrupted play time. In my opinion, the smartest thing to do is keep your kids far away from television. There are definitely no studies in existence which indicate doing so will have a negative consequence on their development. The reverse is definitely false.