14mths : Austrialia bans tv for children under 2

读了澳洲的新育婴政策，第一感想是： 幸好我们不住澳洲，要不阳阳就没得看Mickey Mouse Clubhouse、Little Einsteins、等等他最爱的卡通！:P

虽然我也赞成小孩子应该多些户外活动，但完全不允许看电视节目未免太夸张了吧？


Guidelines call for television ban for children until age two
Natasha Bita October 12, 2009
Article from: The Australian

CHILDREN should be banned from watching television until they turn two, according to new federal guidelines for parents and carers that warn "screen time" can stunt language development and shorten kids' attention span. And television time should be limited to an hour a day for children aged two to five, say the first official recommendations on children's viewing habits.

The drastic recommendations - which fly in the face of Australian children's actual viewing habits - are contained in the new Get Up and Grow guidelines for healthy eating and exercise in early childhood, devised by Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital as part of the federal government's anti-obesity drive.

"Based on recent research, it is recommended that children younger than two years of age should not spend any time watching television or using other electronic media (DVDs, computer and other electronic games)," a draft copy of the guidelines, obtained by The Australian, states. "Screen time ... may reduce the amount of time they have for active play, social contact with others and chances for language development. (It may) affect the development of a full range of eye movement (and) ... reduce the length of time they can stay focused."

With energetic three-year-old twins to care for, Melbourne actor Nicole Nabout is grateful for the "screen time" that gives her the time to read the morning paper. "If I've got work to do and need to use the computer, there's no way I could do it without popping the TV on," Ms Nabout said yesterday. "It is very helpful for me in the morning. The day is very long." Ms Nabout said her twins, Jones and Lola, were "not really into TV" before they turned two, but now watched half an hour to an hour of ABC children's programming on weekdays.

The Get up and Grow report - being finalised for release by federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon next week - is designed for childcare centres, but advises parents to "make a plan for reducing screen time at home".

It states that children aged two to five should not be inactive - defined as time spent watching TV, reading, drawing or solving puzzles - for more than an hour at a time during waking hours.
From the age of one, children should be active for at least three hours a day.

Get up and Grow will be linked to the national curriculum for childcare, released in July. In a policy brief on toddlers and TV, the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne say that very young Australian children typically spend more time watching TV than any other activity.

Citing data from the Australian Communication and Media Authority, they say a four-month-old infant watches an average of 44 minutes of television daily, while under-fours with pay-TV at home spend at least three hours a day in front of the screen. Nearly a third of children live in households that have a TV switched on all the time, the document says, and TV is used as a "babysitter" from earliest infancy. "Face-to-face interactions and responsive, engaged relationships provide the foundation for all child development," the policy brief says.

A lobby group for quality children's programming, the Australian Council on Children and the Media, praised the guidelines. "There are ways of entertaining young children that don't involve plonking them in a passive viewing situation ... even if it's playing in the mud or watching insects crawling," chief executive Barbara Biggins said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26196393-601,00.html