TV Rots Your Brains

I'm sitting here practicing the fine art of dish washing avoidance by adding items to my CafePress store and reading community forums when a posting sparked a cute memory.  Thus, this posting to you.  I don't rightly remember what the insignificant thing that sparked the funny memory was, but I do remember the memory and, yes, I am going to share.  But, first, the back story.

I recently read several articles detailing why children under the age of two should not be exposed to television including the link to ADD, lower language and visual motor skills, obesity, sleep disturbances, lazy parenting and a plethora of other ill effects.  (If you don't believe me, google toddler television watching and see what pops up.)

Upon reading these articles and realizing that I let my one-and-a-half-year-old son watch upwards of... well, I'm not admitting how many hours of television he watched... I made the decision to cut him back to one to two hours per day, at the most, including what is watched on the DVD player in my mom's SUV.  In my own defense, I thought having it on as background noise would serve as the same sort of background noise he would hear at daycare or school.  I was wrong.  See?  I can admit it.

I always saw those parents that had portable DVD players in restaurants or any handheld electronic device in public - aka portable babysitters - and judged them as lazy parents without the attention span to watch or discipline their own children.  Having actually popped a kid out and come to the understanding of basic survival skills required to obtain a minute to yourself, my judgement has lifted a bit, but I still don't wan to be that mom.  (I haven't changed my mind on child leashes, though.)

On weekdays, that time limit always includes Sesame Street since he responds very well to the lessons taught in that action-packed hour; on weekends, it includes my personal favorite of Phineas and Ferb by Disney.  Selfish, I know, but a mom's gotta live, too.

So what's the funny story, you ask?  In the past two weeks of the new regime, my son has started "talking" more and picking up on general human mannerisms... including pointing at the television and asking, "Please, Mom?"