image: the vacuum glow, via flickr

Last night I was having a few cañas with an ex-journalist friend who was raving about how he had gotten rid of his TV so that his children would not be exposed to all the junk the proverbial media is trying to cram down our throats. While completely outlawing the family TV set seems like a drastic measure to me, my friend did have a point. How much exposure to TV should young children have, if any at all? The sad truth of the matter is that most children today probably spend way too much time staring at a screen and, like it or not, all that lack of real human interaction does influence a child’s language development.

According to several recent studies, the average American child aged 2-5 spends 32 hours a week watching television, while the average Spanish child aged 4-12 spends almost 17 hours a week in front of the family TV set. These particular studies don’t show data on how much TV exposure the 0-2 year old group is getting in either country, but it’s safe to assume that most of these TV habits don’t just develop overnight when a child turns two. We clearly come from TV watching societies in which parents pass along their viewing habits to the next generation. So what kinds of effects does all this TV watching really have on a child’s language development? And what about all those baby and toddler videos which are specially designed as educational tools for children? What about the ones who introduce foreign languages to children who might not hear them otherwise? Isn’t watching cartoons or other age appropriate TV shows or movies a great way to reinforce a bilingual child’s weaker language?

I read an interesting article called Making Super-babies on this very subject this morning. The article brings up the recent news that Disney is now offering a refund to all families who bought the internationally popular Baby Einstein dvds between 2004 and 2009 under the impression that they were educational tools for children. It refers to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation that children under two years old should not watch any television at all. But what really caught my attention about this article is that it goes on to compare the myth that infant and toddler dvds can be educational to the “myth” that bilingualism can make a child smarter. While I certainly don’t believe all bilingual children are geniuses, I have read many studies from disinterested sources that do show that there are many cognitive benefits to bilingualism, in addition to the obvious social benefits described in this particular article (see our resources page for more info).

In the midst of all this contraversy, what’s a bilingual parent to do? Those of you who are familiar with Bilingual Readers know that we often write about the importance of interacting with children and language learning through reading and creative play. Research shows that interacting with your children is the number one tool for helping their language development along, which we all know is essential in bilingual homes. That said, we are well aware that modern technology like the TV, computer and video games have all become part of our lives, and we also believe that this technology can be also be a great learning tool when used responsibly. The key is to use your TV and computer as an opportunity to interact with your children. So you when your child wants to watch the latest Disney film, why not watch with him and discuss what’s on the screen while you watch? Repeat the important words and concepts to your child, and when the movie is over, you can even try to act out the story with props to reinforce the vocabulary and other concepts your child is learning.

Of course there are many ways for parents to interact directly with their children, but we at Bilingual Readers believe that one of the most effective ways is through shared parent-child reading. So whatever you do, be sure to make some time every day to read to and with your children in both their languages. I’ve never seen any studies about the dangers of reading to children, so you can go crazy with this one!