Raising a Self-Reliant Child by Dr. Alanna Levine

Author:Dr. Alanna Levine [Levine, Dr. Alanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60774-351-4
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Published: 2013-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

In a survey cited in the AAP November 2011 policy statement, 30 percent of the parents who were interviewed responded that television was a sleep aid for their toddlers, and 29 percent of those two- and three-year-olds had TVs in their rooms. At the same time, research has demonstrated that nighttime TV viewing can disrupt sleep habits, especially in children under the age of three.6 Many parents are shocked when they start to track their kids’ (and own) screen hours. Yet these days, when we’re all so connected, they really mount up.

Tyler seemed healthy in other respects, so it was certainly possible that his viewing habits were keeping him awake and contributing to his crankiness.

I therefore recommended that Susan remove the TV from his room and start to limit his total screen time (including any time spent on a computer or a similar device) to no more than an hour or two per day. I suggested that she make television viewing not a habit but a special, scheduled activity they did together. Around the age of two, children begin to understand the content of TV programs and, by watching with parents and discussing them, can benefit from their lessons. She could make passive entertainment a more active engagement with Tyler.

But this would be just an initial step toward getting Tyler away from the screen and into critical independent play, not to mention more physically active. The years from one to three are the age when motor skills are starting to coalesce, and children begin climbing, jumping, skipping, catching, and throwing with glee, if not with much skill. It is a major developmental step to master these movements, which may not fully click until around age five, so it was important to get Tyler out to the playground to try his wings. It would help him use up some of that abundant toddler energy.

I could see from the way that Tyler kept trying to get in and out of his chair by himself that he was ready to take on these movement challenges. Susan confirmed that, in the house, he could make it up the stairs, but coming down was still a bit dicey. I encouraged her to let him do it alone, standing close by to catch him if necessary—that is, whenever possible, to create safe situations in which he could experiment.

Tyler was also approaching an age when refined hand and finger skills would let him start cutting paper with blunt child’s scissors, drawing, and maybe even copying letters. “Keep his art supplies and other toys on low shelves,” I told her, “so he can see play options that might interest him and just help himself.”

“I wish I’d thought of that,” Susan said. “Right now, it’s always, ‘Mommy! I need you!’ whenever he’s bored. I feel like a recreation director, always trying to come up with play ideas.”

Any option Tyler chose—and, importantly, even the act of choosing the activity, figuring out how to entertain himself—would be better for him, developmentally speaking, than even the most educational of television or computer programs.

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