How Can Watching TV Be Advantageous to Kids
Some of us only had limited TV channels while growing up. Besides, cartoons weren’t on 24/7, so instead, we could only watch them early in the morning before school and on Saturdays. Today’s kids have a wealth of options with multiple TV channels for children that run nothing but cartoons and kid shows all day, all week.
Yet, the good news is that nowadays, programs do go beyond math and reading teaching, delving into social interactions that are helping kids learn how to get along with one other and build friendships, encourage problem solving in the world around them and acquire ideas on how to deal with new, unfamiliar situations.
TV time can be beneficial for kids when they watch the right (TV Shows) content. The following tips offer ideas on how to do that:
Find talking points: Parents who watch shows with their children can use the program’s topic as a talking point. A character lies, steals, cries, fights, helps others or cooperates. Ask the children what happens when someone lies or steals. What can a person do when she’s upset? These provide opportunities for families to discuss what happens when you do the right thing and how the character went about solving a problem.
Tie show with research: You kids may have learned a new word or a program’s topic amazed them. Use the chance to go online to do research and get more researching skills. They can look up for various definitions and check the local library’s catalog for books on the topic for further reading. Like for example, a show covers a variety of music genres is a chance for kids to go online and listen to songs from the related genres and learn about the history of the music.
Discovering culture: Watching the news, documentaries, historical programs and music. More TV programs help explore different cultures in terms of history, music, food and more.
Encourage problem solving: Characters often bump into many challenges and look for ways to overcome them. Parents can use these problems as a way to talk to their kids about their life’s experiences.
Learning good social skills and teamwork: The frequent theme is friendship which teaches how to work together, play fair and understand other people’s feeling – something that would boost a child’s emotional intelligence.
Always bear in mind to balance the TV time with physical activities, reading, playing with non-electronic toys and going outside. Kids also learn from parent behavior.
Alissa Leigh is a freelance writer, led a study that appeared in Pediatrics and reported that parents make a difference in ensuring their children benefit from watching television by talking to them about the program, encouraging them to interact with the show by singing, dancing and saying words, watching a variety of program types and monitoring what they watch and how to promote emotional intelligence.
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