FOR BOOKSTORES -- SUNDAY - NOV 24
\n;JP;SANTI;
\nANPAc..r..
\nChildren-tv-books<\/p>\n
Children, television and books<\/p>\n
Santi W.E. Soekanto
\nContributor
\nJakarta<\/p>\n
\"I believe television is going to be the test of the modern
\nworld, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range
\nof our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable
\ndisturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky.
\nWe shall stand or fall by television-of that I am quite sure.\"
\n- E.B. White (1938)<\/p>\n
Tila and her family in Kebayoran Baru have for the past few
\nyears been surviving without television. A rarity in Jakarta,
\nindeed, where even slum dwellers have TV sets. But Tila believed
\nit was the best decision for her children, the youngest of whom
\nis a highly intelligent 9-year-old boy who prefers home schooling
\nand reading books.<\/p>\n
My family, too, got rid of our TV set more than five years ago
\nas a way of expressing our defiance against such a powerful force
\nwhose influence -- good or otherwise -- seeps through millions of
\nIndonesian families. In exchange, we now have Stasiun Buku (Book
\nStation), a free-of-charge library for hundreds of children in
\nour neighborhood. Featuring books both in Indonesian and English,
\nthe library has now spawned three smaller reading houses in other
\nareas.<\/p>\n
This is not to say that everybody should get rid of their TV
\nsets. Television is here to stay and will grow even bigger.
\nHowever, parents do need to think why children who were perfectly
\nable to speak reverted to \"eh oh...Laa Laa dances!\" after
\nwatching the highly popular Teletubbies.<\/p>\n
Parents who turn their TV set into a baby sitter, entertainer,
\nteacher and even manager for their children, need to be aware of
\nthe \"hypnotic power\" of television (that forces American children
\nbetween 3-17 years of age to spend some 15,000 hours of their
\nlives glued to the screen), could soon undermine their efforts to
\nraise intelligent, well-adjusted children.
\nWhy? Because experts believe:
\n*Television is the direct opposite of reading. Even the so-called
\neducational programs such as Sesame Street are broken down into
\nsegments of 8 minutes to allow for commercials. This creates
\nshorter attention spans in children. Good books, on the other
\nhand, rivet children and encourage a longer attention span.
\n* For the young children, television is an antisocial experience
\nwhile reading is a social experience. A 3-year-old child who is
\nplomped in front of the TV are often completely engrossed by the
\nflickering colors and flashing images to the point of oblivion of
\nanything around him. When a parent places the child in his lap
\nand reads to him, a social, emotional and intellectual exchange
\ntakes place.
\n* Television deprives the child of his most important learning
\ntool: His questions. Has anyone ever wondered how many hours our
\nchildren have spent watching TV before starting school? How many
\nof those hours have they spent asking us questions \"why\" this or
\nthat on the TV screen occurred?
\n* Television interrupts the child's most important language
\nlesson: Family conversation. Books, on the other hand, allows
\nconversation to flow around the reading.
\n* Superficiality, as opposed to in depth treatment of a subject
\nmatter. A U.S. study found that TV nightly news programs use, on
\naverage 3,500 words, which is the equivalent of a HALF a page of
\na newspaper.
\n* Television is unable to portray the most intelligent act known
\nto man: Thinking. In 1980 Squire Rushnell, vice president in
\ncharge of ABC's children's programming, said that certain fine
\nchildren's books cannot be adapted for television. \"You simply
\ncan't put thinking on the screen,\" he said. As a result, a child
\nalmost never sees a TV performer thinking through a problem.
\n* Television overpowers and desensitizes a child's sense of
\nsympathy for suffering, while books heighten the reader's sense
\nof sympathy. Yet another study shows that children between the
\nages of 3 and 17 are exposed to an average of 18,000 acts of
\nviolence. Such bombardment tends to desensitize the children and
\nlessen their sympathy for the victims of the violence.
\n* Television is a passive activity and discourages creative play.
\n* Television is psychologically addictive.
\n* Television is the \"greatest babysitter of all time\" but also
\nthe second largest obstacle to family harmony in the United
\nStates. A survey of 4,000 people by the Roper Organization in the
\nUnited States listed money as the most frequent subject of fights
\nbetween husband and wife. Television and children tied for
\nsecond, and produced three times as many arguments as did sex.
\n* Television presents a continuous distortion of physical and
\nsocial realities, thus reinforcing false stereotypes.
\nReading and reading aloud to children is therefore a must for
\nparents wishing to give the best to their children. What is it
\nthat makes the centuries-old practice of \"reading aloud\" or
\nstory-telling so important?<\/p>\n
The initial reasons are the same reasons that parents talk to
\na child: To reassure, to entertain, to inform or explain, to
\ninstill values, to arouse curiosity and to inspire -- and to do
\nit all personally, not impersonally via a machine. All those
\nexperiences create or strengthen a positive attitude about
\nreading, and attitude is the foundation upon which you build
\nappetites.<\/p>\n
A secondary reason is the established fact that regular
\nreading aloud strengthens children's reading, writing and
\nspeaking skills -- and thus the entire civilizing process.<\/p>\n
The Stasiun Buku has now become an alternative source of
\namusement for many children in our neighborhood. We do not tell
\nthem or their parents to get rid of their TV sets, but we try to
\ncomplement their favorite programs with good books from the
\nlibrary.<\/p>\n
When should parents start to read to their children?
\n* As early as possible. Most parents start talking to their
\nchildren, using complex, multisyllabic sentences, such as \"We
\nlove you baby, you're my precious, the light of my life, the most
\nbeautiful baby on earth\" the day their baby was born.<\/p>\n
We trust our infants to understand what we are saying, so why
\nnot trust them to respond to our reading a book to them? Children
\nunder five are at the height of their imitative powers. Terry T.
\nBrazelton, chief of the child development unit of Boston
\nChildren's Hospital Medical Center, says that new parents' most
\ncritical task during the early stages of childhood is learning
\nhow to calm the child, how to bring her under control, so she can
\nbegin to look around and listen when you pass on information.<\/p>\n
The human voice is one of the most powerful tools a parent has
\nfor calming a child. At least, we know an early start in reading
\nneither hurts nor wastes time.
\n* Read books as frequently as the child wishes and as you are
\nable to. Use any reading material available, from books,
\nmagazines new and old, neon signs, comics, newspapers.
\n* Provide pens, scraps of paper, crayons and anything else easy
\nof reach that would encourage children to scribble, draw or
\nwrite.
\n* Make every effort to answer your child's questions, to take
\nthem to the bookstores, and to stick any drawing, scribbles and
\ncrafts of them in honored places such as the dining room walls.
\n* Recognize when children need to be read to because hearing
\ntheir parent's voice soothes them. Bedtime is one of the best
\ntimes because by that time children are ready to let go of any
\nother distractions and concentrate on the task at hand --
\nabsorbing your words. If possible, establish a regular routine of
\nreading.
\n* Choose books that grow along with the child. An expert once
\ndescribed children between 2 and 5 years of age as \"near
\ngeniuses\" so do not limit their choices to only under-five
\nreading material. Try reading a longer book, and see whether it
\nholds the child's attention; you can proceed if it does, or save
\nit for next year if it does not.
\n* Children develop their taste in books much as they acquire
\ntheir taste in food. Once they are used to good, healthy reading
\nmaterial, they would choose to feed only on that kind of books.<\/p>\n
* When do we stop reading to children? This might be an extreme
\nexample, but a librarian in the Stockholm Library said last year
\nshe read to her children even today when the eldest was already a
\n19-year-old college student simply because they did not want to
\nlet go of the enjoyment and the warmth that they got from their
\nmother's voice.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/for-bookstores-sunday-nov-24-1447893297",
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