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Children-tv-books

Children, television and books

Santi W.E. Soekanto
Contributor
Jakarta

"I believe television is going to be the test of the modern
world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range
of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable
disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky.
We shall stand or fall by television-of that I am quite sure."
- E.B. White (1938)

Tila and her family in Kebayoran Baru have for the past few
years been surviving without television. A rarity in Jakarta,
indeed, where even slum dwellers have TV sets. But Tila believed
it was the best decision for her children, the youngest of whom
is a highly intelligent 9-year-old boy who prefers home schooling
and reading books.

My family, too, got rid of our TV set more than five years ago
as a way of expressing our defiance against such a powerful force
whose influence -- good or otherwise -- seeps through millions of
Indonesian families. In exchange, we now have Stasiun Buku (Book
Station), a free-of-charge library for hundreds of children in
our neighborhood. Featuring books both in Indonesian and English,
the library has now spawned three smaller reading houses in other
areas.

This is not to say that everybody should get rid of their TV
sets. Television is here to stay and will grow even bigger.
However, parents do need to think why children who were perfectly
able to speak reverted to "eh oh...Laa Laa dances!" after
watching the highly popular Teletubbies.

Parents who turn their TV set into a baby sitter, entertainer,
teacher and even manager for their children, need to be aware of
the "hypnotic power" of television (that forces American children
between 3-17 years of age to spend some 15,000 hours of their
lives glued to the screen), could soon undermine their efforts to
raise intelligent, well-adjusted children.
Why? Because experts believe:
*Television is the direct opposite of reading. Even the so-called
educational programs such as Sesame Street are broken down into
segments of 8 minutes to allow for commercials. This creates
shorter attention spans in children. Good books, on the other
hand, rivet children and encourage a longer attention span.
* For the young children, television is an antisocial experience
while reading is a social experience. A 3-year-old child who is
plomped in front of the TV are often completely engrossed by the
flickering colors and flashing images to the point of oblivion of
anything around him. When a parent places the child in his lap
and reads to him, a social, emotional and intellectual exchange
takes place.
* Television deprives the child of his most important learning
tool: His questions. Has anyone ever wondered how many hours our
children have spent watching TV before starting school? How many
of those hours have they spent asking us questions "why" this or
that on the TV screen occurred?
* Television interrupts the child's most important language
lesson: Family conversation. Books, on the other hand, allows
conversation to flow around the reading.
* Superficiality, as opposed to in depth treatment of a subject
matter. A U.S. study found that TV nightly news programs use, on
average 3,500 words, which is the equivalent of a HALF a page of
a newspaper.
* Television is unable to portray the most intelligent act known
to man: Thinking. In 1980 Squire Rushnell, vice president in
charge of ABC's children's programming, said that certain fine
children's books cannot be adapted for television. "You simply
can't put thinking on the screen," he said. As a result, a child
almost never sees a TV performer thinking through a problem.
* Television overpowers and desensitizes a child's sense of
sympathy for suffering, while books heighten the reader's sense
of sympathy. Yet another study shows that children between the
ages of 3 and 17 are exposed to an average of 18,000 acts of
violence. Such bombardment tends to desensitize the children and
lessen their sympathy for the victims of the violence.
* Television is a passive activity and discourages creative play.
* Television is psychologically addictive.
* Television is the "greatest babysitter of all time" but also
the second largest obstacle to family harmony in the United
States. A survey of 4,000 people by the Roper Organization in the
United States listed money as the most frequent subject of fights
between husband and wife. Television and children tied for
second, and produced three times as many arguments as did sex.
* Television presents a continuous distortion of physical and
social realities, thus reinforcing false stereotypes.
Reading and reading aloud to children is therefore a must for
parents wishing to give the best to their children. What is it
that makes the centuries-old practice of "reading aloud" or
story-telling so important?

The initial reasons are the same reasons that parents talk to
a child: To reassure, to entertain, to inform or explain, to
instill values, to arouse curiosity and to inspire -- and to do
it all personally, not impersonally via a machine. All those
experiences create or strengthen a positive attitude about
reading, and attitude is the foundation upon which you build
appetites.

A secondary reason is the established fact that regular
reading aloud strengthens children's reading, writing and
speaking skills -- and thus the entire civilizing process.

The Stasiun Buku has now become an alternative source of
amusement for many children in our neighborhood. We do not tell
them or their parents to get rid of their TV sets, but we try to
complement their favorite programs with good books from the
library.

When should parents start to read to their children?
* As early as possible. Most parents start talking to their
children, using complex, multisyllabic sentences, such as "We
love you baby, you're my precious, the light of my life, the most
beautiful baby on earth" the day their baby was born.

We trust our infants to understand what we are saying, so why
not trust them to respond to our reading a book to them? Children
under five are at the height of their imitative powers. Terry T.
Brazelton, chief of the child development unit of Boston
Children's Hospital Medical Center, says that new parents' most
critical task during the early stages of childhood is learning
how to calm the child, how to bring her under control, so she can
begin to look around and listen when you pass on information.

The human voice is one of the most powerful tools a parent has
for calming a child. At least, we know an early start in reading
neither hurts nor wastes time.
* Read books as frequently as the child wishes and as you are
able to. Use any reading material available, from books,
magazines new and old, neon signs, comics, newspapers.
* Provide pens, scraps of paper, crayons and anything else easy
of reach that would encourage children to scribble, draw or
write.
* Make every effort to answer your child's questions, to take
them to the bookstores, and to stick any drawing, scribbles and
crafts of them in honored places such as the dining room walls.
* Recognize when children need to be read to because hearing
their parent's voice soothes them. Bedtime is one of the best
times because by that time children are ready to let go of any
other distractions and concentrate on the task at hand --
absorbing your words. If possible, establish a regular routine of
reading.
* Choose books that grow along with the child. An expert once
described children between 2 and 5 years of age as "near
geniuses" so do not limit their choices to only under-five
reading material. Try reading a longer book, and see whether it
holds the child's attention; you can proceed if it does, or save
it for next year if it does not.
* Children develop their taste in books much as they acquire
their taste in food. Once they are used to good, healthy reading
material, they would choose to feed only on that kind of books.

* When do we stop reading to children? This might be an extreme
example, but a librarian in the Stockholm Library said last year
she read to her children even today when the eldest was already a
19-year-old college student simply because they did not want to
let go of the enjoyment and the warmth that they got from their
mother's voice.