FTC Approves Children’s Protection Program I Supported

Posted on February 28, 2012 at 8:00 am

I am very pleased that the Federal Trade Commission has voted unanimously to approve a program I supported to increase the protection of children and teens online.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires operators of websites and online services directed to children under the age of 13, and those who knowingly collect personal information from children to post comprehensive privacy policies on their sites, notify parents about their information practices, and obtain parental consent before collecting, using, or disclosing any personal information from children. Companies that have proven systems for protecting children can apply to the FTC for “safe harbor” status, so that any site that uses their protections will be in compliance with the law.

I only wrote to endorse one system, the Integrity Children’s Privacy Compliance Program developed by Aristotle, and I am pleased that the Federal Trade Commission agreed with my assessment that it is a big improvement over current systems to verify parental permission that are easily circumvented by computer-savvy kids.

New Study on Children’s Increasing Immersion in Media

Posted on November 9, 2011 at 8:00 am

How families use media and what it means for kids’ health and well-being is the subject of Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America, the first study by Common Sense Media’s new Program for the Study of Children and Media, released late last month.

The study shows that everything from iPods to smartphones to tablet computers are now a regular part of kids’ lives, with kids under 8 averaging two hours a day with all screen media. Among the key findings:

42% of children under 8 years old have a television in their bedroom.
Half (52%) of all 0- to 8-year-olds have access to a new mobile device, such as a smartphone, video iPod, or iPad/tablet.
More than a third (38%) of children this age have used one of these devices, including 10% of 0-to 1-year-olds, 39% of 2- to 4-year-olds, and more than half (52%) of 5- to 8-year-olds.
In a typical day, one in 10 (11%) 0- to 8-year-olds uses a smartphone, video iPod, iPad, or similar device to play games, watch videos, or use other apps. Those who do such activities spend an average of 43 minutes a day doing so.
In addition to the traditional digital divide, a new “app gap” has developed, with only 14% of lower-income parents having downloaded new media apps for their kids to use, compared to 47% of upper-income parents.

What troubles me most in the results of this study is the pervasive exposure to media for under-2’s, contrary to the recommendations of pediatricians and the increasing digital divide that limits the opportunities to use the best of what is available to kids who already have greater access to traditional resources.

I agree with the recommendations of Common Sense Media:

Balance the types of media your kids are exposed to.
Choose age-appropriate, quality content that reinforces your family’s values.
Watch, play, read, and listen with your kids. Don’t underestimate the value of co-viewing.

But my own recommendations go a little further.

The Pediatricians Really Mean It: No TV, Movies, or Computers for Under-Twos

Posted on October 19, 2011 at 7:00 am

The American Academy of Pediatrics has said it again. They do not recommend any screen time for children under two. They first issued this recommendation in 1999. But in the last 12 years, family media use has skyrocketed.

The temptation to rely on media screens to entertain babies and toddlers is more appealing than ever, with screens surrounding families at home, in the car, and even at the grocery store. And there is no shortage of media products and programming targeted to little ones….In a recent survey, 90 percent of parents said their children under age 2 watch some form of electronic media. On average, children this age watch televised programs one to two hours per day. By age 3, almost one third of children have a television in their bedroom. Parents who believe that educational television is “very important for healthy development” are twice as likely to keep the television on all or most of the time.

The new report finds:

Many video programs for infants and toddlers are marketed as “educational,” yet evidence does not support this. Quality programs are educational for children only if they understand the content and context of the video. Studies consistently find that children over 2 typically have this understanding.

Unstructured play time is more valuable for the developing brain than electronic media. Children learn to think creatively, problem solve, and develop reasoning and motor skills at early ages through unstructured, unplugged play. Free play also teaches them how to entertain themselves.

Young children learn best from—and need—interaction with humans, not screens.

Parents who watch TV or videos with their child may add to the child’s understanding, but children learn more from live presentations than from televised ones.

When parents are watching their own programs, this is “background media” for their children. It distracts the parent and decreases parent-child interaction. Its presence may also interfere with a young child’s learning from play and activities.

Television viewing around bedtime can cause poor sleep habits and irregular sleep schedules, which can

adversely affect mood, behavior and learning.

Young children with heavy media use are at risk for delays in language development once they start

school, but more research is needed as to the reasons.

The report recommends that parents and caregivers:

Set media limits for their children before age 2, bearing in mind that the AAP discourages media use for this age group. Have a strategy for managing electronic media if they choose to engage their children with it;

Instead of screens, opt for supervised independent play for infants and young children during times that a parent cannot sit down and actively engage in play with the child. For example, have the child play with nesting cups on the floor nearby while a parent prepares dinner;

Avoid placing a television set in the child’s bedroom; and

Recognize that their own media use can have a negative effect on children.

My own recommendations: no television in children’s bedrooms, during meals, or in car rides under two hours, no earphones in the car, no television as background noise or for adults to watch while children are around. Set an example by letting your children, even the toddlers, see you talking, playing, exercising, reading, listening to music, and sitting down on the floor to help them play with blocks and toys. One of the most important lessons they will learn is how we decide what is important.

New Sesame Street Character Teaches Kids About Food — And Hunger

Posted on October 16, 2011 at 3:32 pm

In observance of World Food Day, “Sesame Street” has a new toolkit to help families make good decisions about food, so that even those on a limited budget can make meals that help families grow and stay healthy. A new Muppet character named Lily is one of the 17 million children in America who do not have a reliable source for their next meal. “Sesame Street” allows Lily to tell her story to help children who watch develop empathy and kindness, to give children in poverty a character they can identify with so they will not feel as isolated, and to remind everyone of the importance of access to wholesome and nourishing food. Lily will not be a regular on the show, but appears in “Sesame Street’s” special on food and on the website.

Interview: David Code on How Parental Stress is Toxic for Kids

Posted on September 20, 2011 at 8:00 am

Many thanks to author David Code for answering my questions about his new book, Kids Pick Up On Everything: How Parental Stress Is Toxic To Kids.

As featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CBS and Fox News, David Code is an Episcopal minister and award-winning author who draws on the latest research in neuroscience and his own study of families in more than twenty countries across five continents.

What inspired you to research and write this book?

Since I grew up with few resources, I always assumed what many others assume: Families with more money and education must be more secure, more relaxed and just plain happier. But when I was ordained as an Episcopal minister in 2003 and served two wealthy parishes near New York City, I was surprised at what I found.

The wealthy families I counseled almost seemed to suffer more. For example, a successful graphic designer had a daughter with ADHD who had been rejected by several private schools she had applied to. An entrepreneur practiced attachment-parenting with her son for years, including “babywearing” the child on her shoulder or back, and sleeping with him. But her son constantly threw tantrums, and his parents later divorced. Several successful company presidents had children who barely finished high school. Even the relatively normal families I visited often had children with allergies, asthma, learning disabilities, ADHD, or mood disorders, and many were on medication.

This made no sense to me. These kids had well-educated, well-intentioned, self-sacrificing parents who were doing what the experts told them to do: shower your kids with love and attention, help them find and pursue their inner passions, never raise your voice, protect your child at school and defend them on the playground, etc. Yet, their children weren’t turning out as expected. Why would kids with loving, dedicated, successful parents and all their advantages end up as troubled as children?

One clue was that in many of the homes I visited, the stress was palpable and many couples had drifted apart emotionally. As I listened to parents’ kitchen-table confessions, I felt a kind of frenetic, jangly tension that was so thick in the room that one could almost see it. I assumed, like most people would, that these households were tense because their child’s problem had left everyone on edge.

Then, I read something that made me look at these families differently.

A psychiatrist named Murray Bowen had conducted an experiment in the 1950’s at the National Institute of Mental Health, observing how schizophrenic youth interacted with their families. For 18 months or more, several patients lived with their entire families in a ward where Bowen and his staff could observe and record their behaviors 24/7.

How brilliant, I thought: he observed our species the way Jane Goodall observed our chimp cousins in Tanzania!

As Bowen observed and compared the behavior of these families, a certain pattern emerged. He described “a striking emotional distance between the parents in all the families. We have called this the ’emotional divorce’…. When either parent becomes more invested in the patient than in the other parent, the psychotic process becomes intensified.” In other words, the parents didn’t drift apart because they were too busy caring for a schizophrenic child. Rather, the drifting apart of their marriage came first, and it had somehow affected their child’s mental health.

I wasn’t sure what to make of Dr. Bowen’s quirky little experiment, but his concept of the “emotional divorce” forever changed my pastoral counseling to families. For the first time, I noticed my own assumptions and began to question them.

Like most people, I had assumed that a child’s health or behavioral problem makes a family tense, which of course it does. But now I asked myself, “What if that couple was tense even before the problem, and their tension somehow contributed to the child’s symptoms? If the old saying is true that kids pick up on everything, what if there’s some kind of mind-body connection between a parent’s anxious mind and a child’s sensitive body?”

I began to ask doctors, nurses, teachers and therapists about this mind-body connection between parent and child, and they poured out stories of how overwhelmed they feel by today’s seeming epidemic of stressed-out parents and troubled children. As I continued to read more medical studies and interview more experts, my conviction that there is a mind-body connection between a parent’s mind and a child’s body became stronger. It almost seemed as though children become barometers for their parents’ state of mind. Could it be that children are “canaries in the coal mine,” indicating when a family’s levels of stress have become toxic?

The answer is yes. Here is what every parent needs to know:

1) Kids pick up on everything, especially our stress and anxiety;
2) This happens both in the womb and throughout childhood;
3) The mind-body connection is a primal link between every parent and child;
4) This mind-body connection contributes to problems in every family—it’s just a question of degree: from colic and food allergies to asthma and autism;
5) This pattern is already epidemic in America, and it’s getting worse;
6) This is not the mother’s or father’s fault. Today’s parents are more stressed-out because our social support networks are dwindling, and we don’t realize that, as our isolation increases, it drives up our stress levels.

I feel a tremendous sense of urgency in getting my message out to parents, because every day lost is another child born with disorders that could have been reduced or even prevented. Asthma now affects 1 child in 10, as does ADHD. The national prevalence of autism almost doubled from 2002 to 2006, and now it is 1 out of 110 children, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But among military families, the rate is a startling 1 out of every 88 children, and in Silicon Valley the rate is roughly 1 in 77.
I want parents to see the urgent medical imperative to reduce their stress now.

(more…)

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