The Adventures of Baby Arthur

by Lincoln

Football is back! I am a guilty, obsessed NFL football fan who's Sundays are fully booked for the next 4 months. That's right, I am commissioner of 2 different fantasy football leagues and this year, I am "managing" five different fantasy teams. This may be a fact that I shouldn't be proud of but I've got to be me! For opening weekend, we had a few friends and family over and two TVs running side by side with my NFL Ticket subscription on for a solid ten hours.

That's ten hours of viewing pleasure for everyone in the room, including Arthur. GULP! I've read no shortage of articles sermonizing the ill effects of excessive television for children and others with tips on how to control it. They say that too much TV will cause your kid to develop Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). The American Academy of Pediatrics officially recommends no more than 2 hours of TV a day.

While the general consensus is that it's a good idea to avoid excessive TV, there may not have been enough studies done for toddlers. A study by the Children's Hospital of Boston states that TV viewing before the age of 2 has no cognitive benefit OR detriment. Of course, this also means that all of those educational programs that we limit Arthur's TV watching to are useless.

There is no doubt that Arthur is eerily drawn to the television. When it's on, his eyes are glued. He knows what the remote control does and he often picks it up and points it to the TV, sometimes even shrieking to tell us that he wants it on. He loves Sesame Street and even knows he can watch it on the laptop too. It's clearly an amazing source of stimulation for him, but what's running through his mind when he watches? Is he zoning out into auto-pilot? Is he absorbing?

Picking which expert to believe and follow is always a challenge. If you Google long enough, you can find any answer you want. No matter what anyone says, Arthur can now identify Elmo, Big Bird and Cookie Monster when we ask him to. To us, that was an exciting development and it has got to be a good thing.

Before Arthur came along, we always had the TV on as background noise whether or not we were actually watching it. We've tried with decent success to curb this habit once Arthur came along. But I lapse, especially on those early mornings when I just want 30 more minutes of sleep!

It's going to be close to impossible for me to give up football Sunday. It's a drug and I can't get enough. Today, Liz took Arthur out to the park for an hour or two while the games were on. Moira, See-fut, Wylie and other friends and family were also over, so Arthur had people to play with instead of zoning out and staring at the TV. I guess we'll just have to make Sunday an event to keep his attention elsewhere!

Labels: parenting