Today marks the beginning of National Turnoff Week, sponsored by the Center for Screen Time Awareness. The campaign is in its 14th year, and encourages families to spend less time in front of televisions, computers and video games.

This web site is trying to sell you a tv-turnoff kit, but it also has some free printable tools, such as an activity planning chart, that could help children get into the spirit of a project they may initially oppose. It might be more fun, though, to have them design their own charts detailing what they will do instead of watching.

Here's a U.S. government page with more information and ideas about Turnoff Week. I have to say I thought it was interesting that the page includes two videos of Acting U.S. Surgeon General Rear Admiral Steven K. Galson talking about the importance of reducing screen time. The fact that they'd use videos to spread the word about turning off the screen tells you just what a challenge this effort is, for both kids and adults. (Then again, we're talking about this on a blog.)

How are you responding in your house?

(Associated Press photo, 2006)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
                    

I finally got a chance to catch a repeat episode of Snoop Dogg's "Father Hood" reality show on E! yesterday. In case you haven't tuned in yet, the show follows the rapper's attempt to balance his job as an entertainer with life with his wife and three children.

The show opens with Dogg singing (more or less): "This ain't the Huxtables/But we're living comfortable/And I don't make my kids eat their vegetables."

He can't keep them from scratching his Porsche, either, while he's off in New York at the VH-1 Hip-Hop awards in the episode I saw from last season. As soon as his father leaves, his 10-year-old son -- supposedly being watched by older "honorary son" Anthony -- rifles through the rapper's closet and struts around wearing something that makes him look like a Red Velvet Rabbit. The 10-year-old and his 13-year-old brother persuade Anthony to take them out for a ride in the Porsche. (Snoop Dogg's younger daughter is off with her parents in New York.)

Dogg doesn't break much of a sweat when he learns the Porsche has been towed (though he doesn't see the scratch). We don't see him speaking very sternly to anybody.

Have you been watching this show? What does it say to you about fatherhood and celebrity?

(Photo of Snoop Dogg and his wife, Shante Broadus, by Jason DeCrow/Associated Press)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Christine threw out an interesting question last week that I thought would be perfect for this week's Monday Consult. She said her 8-year-old son was glued to last Sunday's astronomy Web site:

I have a hard time deciding how much computer time is ok, especially when he is on educational sites - it seems counterintuitive to ask him to stop learning about astronomy, but he could stay online for hours. Any thoughts?

I asked Michael Brody, a child psychiatrist in private practice in Potomac, to give us his thoughts. Brody teaches a course on children and the media at the University of Maryland and chairs a committee on the subject for the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

I was a little surprised to hear Brody say that he wouldn't have different rules if a site is educational. "Screen time," he says, "is screen time, whether it's watching TV or looking at educational sites on the computer. ... An hour to 2 hours a day is plenty."

 Click the link below to read more of what he had to say...

(Photo of Michael Brody courtesy of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry)

Continue reading "The Monday Consult: Screen time is screen time" »

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 6:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Jane Sundius, director of the education and youth development program of the Open Society Institute in Baltimore (that's the local arm of the international foundation started by billionaire George Soros) has a blog post that I suspect might interest many of you.

 It's called "Using Television for Literacy Skills." Sundius argues that since kids are watching an average of four hours of TV a day despite the recommendation of pediatricians that they should watch no more than two, it might help reading skills if parents would turn on the captioning device so children can see words written as well as hear them spoken.

In case you're not familiar with it, the name of the blog is Audacious Ideas.

I suspect television will be a controversial topic on this blog, as it is among parents in general. What are your thoughts about this?

(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)