I have a five month old daughter. Many of our friends use "Baby Einstein" videos to distract/educate their babies. The concept of having another thing to occupy her for a few minutes a day while also stimulating her appropriately seems great to me, except for one thing. I have heard that children who are exposed to any television before the age of 2 have radically increased prospects of developing ADD later. I have been diagnosed with adult ADD, and unlike my older brother and sister (neither of whom ever had add), I watched tv as a small kid (way back in the 60's - they were lucky enough to be born in the 50's, before tvs were so ubiquitous.

I do not know whether tv made the difference for me, nor why i had the symptoms associated with ADD and they didn't, but since ADD is heritable, I don't want to expose my daughter to any unnecessary environmental factors that increase the odds of her developing the same problems I had all through school and beyond.

At the same time I don't want to deprive her (and to be honest, us as parents) of an otherwise good thing, something fun for her that might give us a few minutes.

Has anyone heard of this issue or do they have any insight they could offer?

Just my opinion, but I don't believe T.V. causes, or even contributes to ADHD. I think if you are going to get it, you are going to get it either way. We rarely watched t.v. as kids, and I still have ADHD.
1 of my children has an ADHD diagnosis, and it looks like he probably has Aspergers, so I'm not sure if the ADHD diagnosis will be dropped or not, but he wouldn't even watch t.v. before he was about 3 1/2, so I know it had no influence on him either way.

I don't think kids should sit in front of a t.v. all day either, because I DO think it can contribute to lack of activity and weight problems, for children that don't want to do anything except sit in front of the t.v.

I don't limit t.v. time here because my kids just don't watch it that much. They would much rather be outside playing, or doing an inside activity, so it's never been a problem.

I really don't think some t.v. time, especially things like Baby Einstein is going to hurt anything. It will give you a minute to yourself, or with your husband, and if you are rejuvenated, then that is better for everyone :).

of my two children, the one who watched tv turned into the straight a student with a college reading level by 9th grade; my daughter, who watched very little tv, is the one with add. she was too busy running around to ever sit still enough to watch the tube. go figure. i suspect this "study" will turn out to be flawed.

As far as I know there is no scientific or medical basis for the claim that TV causes (or enhances) ADHD in children.

However, I think that depositing a child in front of a tv when he/she could be interracting with his/her world is NOT a good thing developmentally, and I've never been in favor of using TV to "babysit" little ones. (That is just my opinion, btw).. Experiencing the bumps, bruises, tickles, and tears of the real world is probably far more beneficial than TV... but I don't think thta tv is harmful as such...


ME :D

It's not so much a question of depositing a baby in front of the tv as a substitute for interaction as much as a question of a 15 minute video that is designed to stimulate learning and development in the same sense that mobiles, saucergyms and the like do. Anyone with a baby knows it is not humanly possible to interact with the baby literally every waking second. Similarly, I think there is a broad consensus among sensible people that using the tv as a babysitter is obviously bad.

What I want to know is whether anyone has heard any objective scientific information about the claim that tv viewing - whether positive educational videos or not - has a neurological impact on very early brains (ie before 2) that tends to cause add later. There is one study that suggests it does, but one study is hardly a scientific consensus.

No, there is no credible evidence to support the idea that TV causes ADHD.

Currently, the evidence seems to point to genetics as the cause for adhd. I suspoect that environment is also a factor in how vividly adhd expresses itself in an andividual as well.

Also, one can point to injury and chemical agents as a "cause" for adhd, but in my opinion, those things are not adhd, but are conditions that merely have add-like symptoms.

I recall hearing of one Canadian study which noticed that many people who spent long hours at TV watching have addhd, but it seems to me that a lot of ADDers are gonna be glued to the TV because they have adhd, and are not ADHD because they watch tv a lot.

My ADHD grandson will turn on a tv in every room in the house and roma from room to room, wathcing bits that are of interest to him. He does this every day.


Me :D

And remember, ADHD existed LOOOONNNG before the telly did!

My feeling is that ADD isn't something you "get". You're born with it, or you're not, and that the people who are being diagnosed with adult ADD were just undiagnosed children. Especially since in the course of my reading up, a lot of books have talked about signs of ADD in infants. . .

Honestly, if you're going to plop them in front of the TV at that age, it doesn't much matter what they watch, as long as it's something you do only on occasion. There's no substitute for playing with your kids and reading to them and taking them outdoors, but sometimes it's either TV, or you can't do laundry or eat an entire meal before it goes bad. My kids, who are both in middle school now, high honor roll students, were brought up with not too much TV, but what they watched included music videos by Peter Gabriel, B-52's, and Paula Abdul, along with the requisite stomach-turning Disney flicks and computer animation videos (The Mind's Eye series - amazing how far computer graphics have come in such a short time!). I even gave in and let them watch Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh eventually, and they >still< haven't become underacheiving juvenile delinquents or developed ADD! The key is. . .moderation in all things, including moderation!