Greater Good

When I was pregnant with Fiona, my friends, all childless themselves, thought it would be funny to write an advice book for my husband and I. (No one knew that I would, ironically, go on to be someone who routinely gives parenting advice.) They each wrote entries about the things they thought their own parents did well. My buddy Scott—who happens to be smart, funny, AND kind—detailed all the ways that watching "too much TV" as a child has benefited him in later life. Though a knowledge of 1970's popular culture will only take you so far, I made a mental note to let my kids watch as much as they wanted.

But then I found out that you the American Academy of Pediatrics adamantly recommends that parents not let their children watch any TV until they are at least two years old, not even if the tired mommy really wants to take a shower. Being something of a rule-follower, Fiona didn't know the word for TV until her second birthday, when she promptly became a Sesame Street and Blues Clues junkie. I conveniently forgot about the AAP recommendation with Molly; it seemed too hard to cut TV out altogether.

Is that bad?

I certainly wasn't alone in letting my baby watch TV. American children spend 2 to 5 hours a day watching television, on average. 59% of children younger than two—who aren't supposed to be watching any—watch an average of 1.3 hours of television daily.

It turns out that a very large number of studies have reported harmful effects from children's television viewing, including worse performance in school, obesity, attention-span problems, aggression, sleep deprivation, requests for advertised foods, and eating fewer fruits and vegetables and more pizza, snack food, soda, and high-fat foods.

Even videos that claim to be beneficial—like the Baby Einstein video series—aren't good and may be bad. In one study, for example, for every hour per day spent watching such videos, children understood an average of six to eight fewer words than did those of the same age who did not watch them—a 17-percentile drop in vocabulary.

On the other hand, video games don't necessarily deserve their bad rap. They can be a great way to socialize and connect with friends (especially for boys). And video games can actually facilitate, rather than discourage, physical play. Boys who play sports video games, for example, are actually much more likely to play those games in real life—they use the video games to master new moves, and then they go out and practice in real life.

7 Things to Keep in Mind When the Electronic Babysitter is Getting a Lot of Play

1. Television brings little or no benefits, but it replaces activities that do make kids happier, healthier, and smarter. The more kids watch TV, the less time they tend to spend with their parents and siblings, the less time they spend doing homework (for 7-12 year olds), and the less time they spend in creative play (especially in children younger than 5). For very young children (less than 3), time spent watching TV replaces activities children need for proper brain development, particularly interaction with their caregivers.

2. On the other hand, research has shown that playing video games doesn't usually take time away from sports or other active pursuits, and that game-playing teens spend the same amount of time with family and friends as non-gamers.

3. Those pediatricians are right: infants and toddlers under 2 should not have any screen time. Early television exposure is associated with problems like ADD and ADHD, and decreased intelligence later in childhood.

4. Computer use by children under the age of three is also not recommended. However, some research shows that computer programs, when combined with activities that facilitate what the programs are trying to teach, can help 3- to 4-year-olds develop a range of skills, including long-term memory, manual dexterity and verbal skills.

5. Not all screen time is equal. In our homes we should ban the 20% of videogames that are rated as too violent or sexual for kids. Research shows a strong link between violent video game play and aggressive feelings and behaviors; violent video games trigger a part of the brain that drives people to act aggressively. And violent video game play measurably decreases helpful behaviors. Similarly, watching violent programming on TV is associated with a decrease in fantasy play among preschoolers and an increase in children's aggressiveness.

6. Parents who watch television with their children and reinforce the educational aspects of shows can improve the quality of the learning experience for their children. Unfortunately, most kids usually don't watch educational television with their parents – they watch general audience programs targeted to adults rather than children.

7. Although 68% of American kids do have televisions in their rooms, children with a TV in their bedroom are 1.3 times more likely to be overweight (even when they are physically active and/or participate in team sports).

Looks like my friend Scott, who watched TV every waking moment of his childhood but whose brain developed just fine, is an outlier. Our best bet is to turn off the boob tube and send the kids out to play.

Related posts:

• The Power of Play
• How to Get the Most Out of Family Dinners
• Back-to-School: Play and Academic Success

© 2008 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge.

Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook.

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References:

Strasburger, VC. (2001). Children and TV advertising: nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics. 22(3). 185-7.

Committee on Communications. (2006) Children, Adolescents, and Advertising: Organizational Principles to Guide and Define the Child Health Care System and/or Improve the Health of All Children. Pediatrics. 118(6). 2563-2569.

Aachei-Mejia, AM. Longacre, MR. Gibson, JJ. Beach, ML. Titus-Ernstoff, LT. Dalton, MA. (2007). Children with a TV in their bedroom at higher risk for being overweight. International Journal of Obesity. 31. 644-651.

Vanderwater, E. Beickham, D. Lee, June. (2008) Time Well Spent? Relating television Use to Children's Free-Time Activities. Pediatrics. 117(2).

Zimmerman, F.J. Christakis, D.A. Meltzoff, A.N. (2007) Television and DVD/Video Viewing in Children Younger Than 2 Years. (REPRINTED) ARCH PEDIATR ADOLESC MED. 161. 473-479.

Christakis, D.A. Zimmerman, F.J. DiGiuseppe, D.L. McCarthy, C.A. (2004) Early Television Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems in Children. Pediatrics. 113. 708–713.

National Institute on Media and the Family. (2002). Fact Sheet Children And Advertising. Retrieved November 12, 2008, from http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_childadv.shtml

Gantz, W. Schwartz, N. Angelini, J. Rideout, V. (2007). Food For Thought: Television food advertising to children in the United States. Retrieved November 12, 2008, from http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/7618.pdf

Christakis , B . Ebel , F . Rivara , F . Zimmerman. (2004). Television, video, and computer game usage in children under 11 years of age. The Journal of Pediatrics. 145(5) , Pages 652 - 656.

Many people assume that creativity is an inborn talent that their kids either do or do not have: just as all children are not equally intelligent, all children are not equally creative. But actually, creativity is more skill than inborn talent, and it is a skill parents can help their kids develop.
Because it is a key to success in nearly everything we do, creativity is a key component of health and happiness and a core skill to practice with kids. Creativity is not limited to artistic and musical expression—it is also essential for science, math, and even social and emotional intelligence. Creative people are more flexible and better problem solvers, which makes them more able to adapt to technological advances and deal with change—as well as take advantage of new opportunities.

Many researchers believe we have fundamentally changed the experience of childhood in such a way that impairs creative development. Toy and entertainment companies feed kids an endless stream of prefab characters, images, props and plot-lines that allow children to put their imaginations to rest. Children no longer need to imagine a stick is a sword in a game or story they've imagined: they can play Star Wars with a specific light-saber in costumes designed for the specific role they are playing.

Here are some ideas for fostering creativity in your kids:

1. Provide the resources they need for creative expression. The key resource here is time. Kids need a lot of time for unstructured, child-directed, imaginative play –unencumbered by adult direction, and that doesn't depend on a lot of commercial stuff (see this post about unstructured play).

   Space is also a resource your kids need. Unless you don't mind creative messes everywhere, give them a specific place where they can make a mess, like room in your attic for dress-up, a place in the garage for painting, or a corner in your family room for Legos.

   Next time someone asks for a gift suggestion for your kids, ask for things like art supplies, cheap cameras, costume components, building materials. Put these in easy-to-deal-with bins that your kids can manage.

2. Make your home a Petri dish for creativity. In addition to creative spaces, you need to foster a creative atmosphere.

   Solicit a high volume of different ideas, but resist the urge to evaluate the ideas your kids come up with. At dinnertime, for example, you could brainstorm activities for the upcoming weekend, encouraging the kids to come up with things they've never done before. Don't point out which ideas aren't possible, and don't decide which ideas are best. The focus of creative activities should be on process: generating (vs. evaluating) new ideas.

   Encourage kids to make mistakes and fail. Yes, fail – kids who are afraid of failure and judgment will curb their own creative thought. Share the mistakes you've made recently, so they get the idea that it is okay to flub up. Laughing at yourself when you blow it is a happiness habit.

   Celebrate innovation and creativity. Cover your walls with art and other evidence of creative expression. Tell your kids all about your favorite artists, musicians, and scientists. Share your passion for architecture or photography or that new band you want to listen to all the time. Embrace new technologies like Twitter so your kids grow to find change exciting, not over-whelming or intimidating.

3. Allow kids the freedom and autonomy to explore their ideas and do what they want. Don't be so bossy. (If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, who knows what is.) Stop living in fear that they are going to be kidnapped or not get into a great college. Statistically, the odds are very low that they'll be kidnapped, and I'm here to tell you that I'm not a happier person because I went to an Ivy League school.

   External constraints—making them color within the lines, so to speak—can reduce flexibility in thinking. In one study, just demonstrating how to put together a model reduced the creative ways that kids accomplished this task.

4. Encourage children to read for pleasure and participate in the arts. Limit TV and other screen time in order to make room for creative activities like rehearsing a play, learning to draw, reading every book written by a favorite author.

5. Give children the opportunity to express "divergent thought." Let them disagree with you. Encourage them to find more than one route to a solution, and more than one solution to a problem. When they successfully solve a problem, ask them to solve it again but to find a new way to do it (same solution, different route). Then ask them to come up with more solutions to the same problem.

6. Don't reward children for exhibiting creativity: incentives interfere with the creative process, reducing the quality of their responses and the flexibility of their thought.

   Allow children to develop mastery of creative activities that they are intrinsically motivated to do, rather than trying to motivate them with rewards and incentives. Instead of rewarding a child for practicing the piano, for example, allow her to do something she enjoys more – maybe sit at her desk and draw or take a science class.

7. Try to stop caring what your kids achieve. Emphasize process rather than product. One way you can do this is by asking questions about the process – Did you have fun? Are you finished? What did you like about that activity?

Related posts:

• The Power of Play
• Let Your Kids Fail
• Teaching the Growth Mindset

© 2008 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge.

Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook.

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Subscribe to the Happiness Matters Podcast on iTunes.

Sign up for the Raising Happiness CLASS!

If you've been reading this series on perfection being a total drag on happiness, and you keep thinking to yourself, crap, I've created a perfectionist, and now you're worried that your daughter is going to end up depressed and stifled or your son is going to turn out to be an anxious meth user, stop it. Everyone is going to be fine. You don't need to be a perfect parent to raise happy kids. We have actual science to back this fact up.

To recap: Perfectionism is all about fear of failure. The worst case scenario for perfectionists, then, is that we make a mistake or fail—and someone finds out about it. Perfectionist logic:

I stop obsessing about being perfect → I won't be perfect → I'll feel terrible.

This is faulty logic, of course. The way to wean someone from perfectionism is to show them that when they make mistakes and fail, they actually don't feel terrible. In fact, they might feel terribly FREE (at least that is what happened to me).

According to perfectionism researcher Randy Frost, perfectionists believe that their self-worth is contingent on their performance—that if they don't do well, they are worthless. That's why they think it is going to feel bad when they stop trying to be perfect. Perfectionists tend to think that failure to achieve will seriously diminish the affection and high-regard of their parents.

Here's how to help the perfectionist in your life quit it:

1. Have her engage in whatever she tends to be perfectionistic about. Let's say, for example, this is Georgia attempting to draw something she's never drawn before, like an oak tree.

2. Ask her to do it, preferably badly. When I was in high school, my dad used to beg me to get a C just so that I could see that my heart wouldn't stop beating if I wasn't a star student all the time. I finally learned this lesson rock-climbing: the first thing my instructor made me do was fall off of the rock at 50 feet up. Once I felt the ropes catch me, I knew viscerally that I would live even if I did fall, and my legs stopped quaking with fear. Perfectionists need to learn this lesson: usually it doesn't hurt very much or for very long to fail.

3. Ask her what it means that she drew a terrible oak tree, if it did come out badly. Does she think it means that she is not a good artist? Does she think that not being a great artist diminishes her worth? Point out that Thomas Edison had to try more than 1,000 times before he invented the light bulb successfully. If the oak tree is actually pretty good in her eyes, ask her what she thinks that means. Let her see that you don't care a whip whether or not she can draw – you love her just the way she is.

4. Ask her how she feels. Chances are she doesn't feel terrible, but that she feels loved and cared for by you. Point this out empathetically: "Sounds like you feel okay even though you did something you were afraid might make you look bad." Offer enthusiastic congratulations: "How great! You are learning to try new things and take risks! Whoo-hoo!"

5. At this point, you can help develop a strategy that might work better on her next attempt. Try to keep this light-hearted.

If you find your kids laughing at themselves as they reflect on their jobs-imperfectly-done, you know you've succeeded!

Have you stopped being a perfectionist? Weaned a kid from perfectionism? If so, how did you do it? Did you try the steps above? Did it work? Please leave comments and suggestions for other readers.

Step 2 for fostering success and happiness, but not perfectionism:
Let your kids fail.

Related posts:

• How To Make Your Kid into a Perfectionist
• Perfectionism is a Disease
• The Science of Success
• Teaching the Growth Mindset

© 2008 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge.

Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook.

Follow Christine Carter on Twitter

Subscribe to the Happiness Matters Podcast on iTunes.

Sign up for the Raising Happiness CLASS!