More on Screen Time

Can you tell we liked the presentation by journalist-turned-author, Lisa Guernsey? First Janet, and now I am blogging about it! And I have to admit, my first reaction when I saw we were hosting an author to talk about screen time, was "Great. Now I have another person to make me feel guilty about letting my under-2-year-old watch TV." And it was not that way at all. Lisa focuses more on the quality of TV, apps and video games than the quantity (even for kids under 2), and she offers a pneumonic to help you remember: SPLERN. "SPLERN???" you may ask, "How am I going to remember a nonsense word like that?" That's what I said to myself. But I remembered it without even taking notes, so the acronym did it's job!

• Straight-time story line (the story goes from beginning to end without things like dream sequences, flashbacks, memories, side plots, etc)
• Participation (Dora or Blue's Clues are good examples of this where the kids are actually asked a question and given time to answer, but anything that encourages participation like songs, movement, etc.)
• Labeling (When unfamiliar words or items are shown, they are labeled or defined within the context of the show)
• Engagement (Do the kids like it?)
• Repetition (Speaks for itself)
• Non-Violence (I should probably stop letting Coby watch even the 1981 Spiderman cartoon *cringe*)

So glad I got the opportunity to see her in person, and I highly recommend her book Screen Time: How Electronic Media--From Baby Videos to Educational Software--Affects Your Young Child.