WANT to give your children a good start in life? Then you may need to deny them their beloved television every once in a while. The reports that the more television children watch between the ages of 5 and 11, the more likely they are to have attention problems between the ages of 13 and 15 (Pediatrics, vol 120, p 532).
The team followed more than 1000 children for 13 years, from age 3 to 15. They found that the relationship between the amount of TV watched and attention skills during adolescence was independent of gender, cognitive skills, socioeconomic status or of attention skills at younger ages.
鈥淭V is more likely to be causing the attention problems, rather than parents using TV to handle inattentive kids,鈥� claims Bob Hancox of the University of Otago in New Zealand, who led the study.
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鈥淭elevision, with its constant scene changes, is very good at holding a child鈥檚 attention, and that may be why they end up having problems paying attention elsewhere,鈥� he says.
