Strangers
in Our Homes: TV and Our Children's Minds
Special Thanks to Susan R. Johnson, M.D.
© Susan R. Johnson, M.D., 1999.
Note: Duplication and redistribution of unbound paper copies permitted.
TV rots the senses in the head!
It kills the imagination dead!
It clogs and clutters up the mind!
It makes a child so dull and blind.
He can no longer understand a fantasy,
A fairyland!
His brain becomes as soft as cheese!
His powers of thinking rust and freeze!
An excerpt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
By Roald Dahl, 1964
As a mother and a pediatrician who completed both a three-year residency in
Pediatrics and a three-year subspecialty fellowship in Behavioral and
Developmental Pediatrics, I started to wonder: "What are we doing to our
children's growth and learning potential by allowing them to watch television
and videos as well as spend endless hours playing computer games?"
I practiced seven years
as the Physician Consultant at the School Health Center in San Francisco,
performing comprehensive assessments on children, ages 4-12, who were having
learning and behavioral difficulties in school. I saw hundreds of children who
were having difficulties paying attention, focusing on their work, and
performing fine and gross motor tasks. Many of these children had a poor
self-image and problems relating to adults and peers. As a pediatrician, I had
always discouraged television viewing, because of the often violent nature of
its content (especially cartoons) and because of all the commercials aimed at
children. However, it wasn't until the birth of my own child, 6 years ago, that
I came face to face with the real impact of television. It wasn't just the
content, for I had carefully screened the programs my child watched. It was the
change in my child's behavior (his mood, his motor movements, his play) before,
during and after watching TV that truly frightened me.
Before watching TV, he would be outside in nature, content to look at bugs,
make things with sticks and rocks, and play in the water and sand. He seemed at
peace with himself, his body, and his environment. When watching TV, he was so
unresponsive to me and to what was happening around him, that he seemed glued
to the television set. When I turned off the TV he became anxious, nervous, and
irritable and usually cried (or screamed) for the TV to be turned back on. His
play was erratic, his movements impulsive and uncoordinated. His play lacked
his own imaginative input. Instead of creating his own play themes, he was
simply re-enacting what he had just seen on TV in a very repetitive, uncreative
and stilted way.
At age 3 1/2 years, our son went on a plane trip to visit his cousins near
Boston, and on the plane, was shown the movie "Mission Impossible."
The movie was right above our son's head making it difficult to block out.
Earphones had not been purchased, so the impact was only visual, but what an
impact it had on our son. He had nightmares and fears about fires, explosions,
and bloody hands for the next 6 months, and his play was profoundly changed.
One of my colleagues told me I just had an overly sensitive child, and because
I had not taken him to see a movie or let him watch much TV, he was not
"used to it" and that was why he was so disturbed by the pictures he
saw. All I could think was thank heaven he was not "used to it".
Later that year, I assessed six different children from ages 8 - 11 years at
the School Health Center who all had similar difficulties with reading. They
couldn't make a mental picture of letters or words. If I showed them a series
of letters and asked them to identify one particular letter, they could do it.
If I gave them no visual input and just asked them to write a particular letter
by memory, they couldn't do it. All of these children watched a lot of television
and videos and played computer games. I wondered what happens to a developing
child placed in front of a TV set if they are presented with visual and
auditory stimuli at the same time. What is left for the brain to do? At least
with reading a story or having a story read to them, the mind can create its
own imaginative pictures.
A question arose and I immediately called up my colleague and asked:
"Could television itself be causing attention problems and learning
difficulties in children?" My colleague laughed and said just about
everyone watches TV - even my child does - and she doesn't have Attention
Deficit Disorder or a learning disability. I thought to myself: "Are we
spending enough time with our children and looking deeply enough into their development
and soul to notice the often subtle changes that occur from spending hours in
front of the TV set"? Maybe some children are more vulnerable to the
effects of television because of a genetic predisposition or poor nutrition or
a more chaotic home environment. I wondered about the loss of potential in all
our children, because they are exposed to so much television and so many videos
and computers games. What are the capacities we are losing or not even
developing because of this TV habit? I then started to read, attend lectures,
and ask a lot more questions.
Television has been in existence for the past 80 years, though the broadcasting
of entertainment shows didn't begin until the 1940's. In 1950, 10% of American
households owned a TV set. By 1954, this percentage had increased to 50%, and
by 1960, 80% of American households owned a television. Since 1970, more than
98% of American households own a TV and currently 66% of households own three
or more TVs. Television is on almost 7 hours per day in an average American
home. Children of all ages, from preschool through adolescence, watch an
average of 4 hours of TV per day (excluding time spent watching videos or
playing computer games). A child spends more time watching TV than any other
activity except sleeping, and by age 18 a child has spent more time in front of
a TV than at school.
There have been numerous articles looking at the content of television and how
commercials influence children's (and adults') desires for certain foods or
material goods (e.g., toys), and how violence seen on television (even in
cartoons) leads to more aggressive behavior in children (Fischer et. al. 1991,
Singer 1989, Zuckerman 1985). Concerns have been raised about who is teaching
our children and the developmental appropriateness of what is presented on TV
to toddlers, children, and even adolescents. Miles Everett, Ph.D., in his book,
How Television Poisons Children's Minds, points out that we don't allow our
child to talk to strangers, yet through television we allow strangers into the
minds and souls of our children everyday. These "strangers"
(advertising agencies), whose motivations are often monetary, are creating the
standards for what is "good" or developmentally appropriate for the
developing brains of our children.
More importantly, several investigators (Healy 1990, Pearce 1992, Buzzell 1998,
Winn 1985) have drawn attention to the actual act of viewing television as even
more insidious and potentially damaging to the brain of the developing child
than the actual content of what's on TV. So what are we doing to our children's
potential by allowing them to watch television?
Question: How does a
child's brain develop and how does a child learn?
Joseph Chilton Pearce in
his book, Evolution's End, sees a child's potential as a seed that needs to be
nurtured and nourished in order to grow properly. If the environment doesn't
provide the necessary nurturing (and protections from over-stimulation), then
certain potentials and abilities cannot be realized. The infant is born with 10
billion nerve cells or neurons and spends the first three years of life adding
billions of glial cells to support and nourish these neurons (Everett 1992).
These neurons are then capable of forming thousands of interconnections with each
other via spider-like projections called dendrites and longer projections
called axons that extend to other regions of the brain.
It is important to
realize that a six-year-old's brain is 2/3 the size of an adult's though it has
5 - 7 times more connections between neurons than does the brain of an
18-month-old or an adult (Pearce 1992). The brain of a 6 - 7 year old child
appears to have a tremendous capacity for making thousands and thousands of
dendrite connections among neurons. This potential for development ends around
age 10 - 11 when the child loses 80% of these neural connections (Pearce 1992,
Buzzell 1998). It appears that what we don't develop or use, we lose as a
capacity. An enzyme is released within the brain and literally dissolves all
poorly myelinated pathways (Pearce 1992, Buzzell 1998).
In the developing child, there is a progression of brain development from the
most primitive core (action) brain, to the limbic (feeling) brain, and finally
to the most advanced neocortex, or thought brain. There are critical periods
for brain development when the stimulus must be present for the capacity to
evolve (for example, language). There is also plasticity in brain development
so that even adults can make new dendritic connections, but they have to work
harder to establish pathways which were more easily made in childhood.
[Figure (Pearce 1992) shows a brain cross-section with labels. 1. Thought: New
Mammalian "Human" Brain 2. Feeling: Old Mammalian Limbic System 3.
Action: Reptillian R-System]
The core (action) brain is dedicated to our physical survival and manages
reflexes, controls our motor movements, monitors body functions, and processes
information from our senses. Along with the limbic (feeling) brain, it is
involved in the "flight or fight" response that our body has to a
dangerous or threatening situation. Humans react physically and emotionally
before the thought brain has had time to process the information (Buzzell
1998).
Our limbic (feeling) brain wraps around our core (action) brain and processes
emotional information (e.g., our likes - dislikes, love - hate polarities). Our
feeling brain gives meaning and value to our memories and what we learn. It
influences behavior based on emotional feelings and has an intimate
relationship to our immune system and capacity to heal. It is involved in the
forming of our intimate relationships and emotional bonds (e.g., between mother
and child) and is connected with our dreaming, subtle intuitive experiences and
the daydreams and fantasies that originate from the thought brain (Healy 1990).
This feeling brain connects the more highly evolved thought brain to the more
primitive action brain. Our lower action brain can be made to follow the will
of our thought brain or our higher thought brain can be "locked into"
the service of the lower action-feeling brain during an emergency that is real
or imagined (Pearce 1992). The action and feeling brains can't distinguish real
from imaginary sensory input. It is a survival advantage to react first and think
later.
Finally our thought brain, the neocortex, represents our highest and newest
form of intellect. It receives extensive input from the core (action) brain and
limbic (feeling) brain and has the potential of separating itself and being the
most objective part of the brain. It connects us to our higher self. However,
the neocortex needs more time to process the images from the action and feeling
brains. It is also the part of the brain that has the most potential for the
future, and it is the place where our perceptions (experiences), recollections,
feelings, and thinking skills all combine to shape our ideas and actions
(Everett 1997). The thinking brain is "5 times larger than the other
brains combined and provides intellect, creative thinking, computing and, if
developed, sympathy, empathy, compassion and love" (Pearce 1992).
There is a sequential development (a progressive myelination of nerve pathways)
of the child's brain from the most primitive (action) brain to the limbic
(feeling) brain and finally to the most highly evolved thought brain, or
neocortex. Myelination involves covering the nerve axons and dendrites with a
protective fatty-protein sheath. The more a pathway is used, the more myelin is
added. The thicker the myelin sheath, the faster the nerve impulse or signal
travels along the pathway. For these reasons, it is imperative that the growing
child receives developmentally appropriate input from their environment in
order to nourish each part of the brain's development and promote the
myelination of new nerve pathways. For example, young children who are in the
process of forming their motor-sensory pathways and sense organs (the action
brain) need repetitive and rhythmical experiences in movement.
Children also need experiences that stimulate and integrate their senses of
sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Their senses need to be protected from
over-stimulation, since young children are literally sponges. Children absorb
all they see, hear, smell, taste and touch from their environment since they
haven't developed the brain capacity to discriminate or filter out unpleasant
or noxious sense experiences. The sense of touch is especially crucial since
our culture and its hospital birth practices (including the high rate of
C-sections) and, until recently, its discouragement of breast-feeding, deprive
infants of critical multi-sensory experiences.
The stimulation and development of our sense organs is the precursor to the
development of part of our lower brain, called the Reticular Activating System
(RAS). The RAS is the gateway through which our sense impressions coordinate
with each other and then travel to the higher thought brain. The RAS is the
area of the brain that allows us to attend and focus our attention. Impairments
in motor-sensory pathways lead to impairments in children's attention span and
ability to concentrate (Buzzell 1998). Over-stimulation and under-stimulation
of our senses and poorly developed fine and gross motor movements may lead to
impairments in attention.
By age 4, both the core (action) and limbic (feeling) brains are 80%
myelinated. After age 6-7, the brain's attention is shifted to the neocortex
(thought brain) with myelination beginning first on the right side or
hemisphere and later joined by the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere is the
more intuitive side of the brain, and it particularly responds to visual
images. It grasps wholes, shapes and patterns and focuses on the big picture
rather than the details. It directs drawing and painting and monitors melodies
and harmonies of music. It is especially responsive to novelty and color and is
the dominant hemisphere when watching TV (Healy, 1990, Everett 1997).
The left hemisphere dominates when a child reads, writes and speaks. It
specializes in analytical and sequential thinking and step-by-step logical
reasoning. It analyzes the sound and meaning of language (e.g., phonic skills
of matching sound to letters of the alphabet). It manages fine muscle skills
and is concerned with order, routine and details. The ability to comprehend
science, religion, math (especially geometry) and philosophy relies on abstract
thinking characteristic of the left hemisphere.
Even though we emphasize which functions of learning are performed by which
hemisphere, there is a crucial connection between the two hemispheres called
the corpus callosum. It consists of a large bundle of nerve pathways that form
a bridge between the left and right hemispheres. It is one of the brain's
latest-maturing parts. The left and right sides of the body learn to coordinate
with each other by this pathway. Gross motor activities like jumping rope,
climbing, running, and circle games and fine motor activities like form
drawing, knitting, pottery, origami, woodworking, embroidery, and bread-making
are crucial to myelinating this pathway and lead to more flexible manipulation
of ideas and a creative imagination. This pathway provides the interplay
between analytic and intuitive thinking, and several neuropsychologists believe
that poor development of this pathway affects the right and left hemispheres'
effective communication with each other and may be a cause of attention and
learning difficulties (Healy 1990).
We myelinate our pathways by using them. Movements of our bodies combine with
experiences of our senses to build strong neural pathways and connections. For
example, when a toddler listens to the sound of a ball bouncing on the floor,
tastes and smells the ball or pushes, rolls and throws the ball, neurons are
making dendritic connections with each other. When a toddler examines balls of
varying sizes, shapes, weights and textures, a field of thousands (and possibly
millions) of interconnecting neurons can be created around the "word"
ball (Pearce 1992). Repetition, movement, and multisensory stimulation are the
foundations of the language development and higher level thinking. The
toddler's repetitive experiences, with an object like a ball, create images or
pictures in his/her brain. "The images of the core limbic brain form much
of the elemental "food" for the remarkable and progressive
abstracting abilities of the associative high cortex [neocortex]" (Buzzell
1998).
Question: What is so harmful to the mind about watching television?
Watching television has
been characterized as multi-leveled sensory deprivation that may be stunting
the growth of our children's brains. Brain size has been shown to decrease
20-30% if a child is not touched, played with or talked to (Healy 1990). In
addition when young animals were placed in an enclosed area where they could
only watch other animals play, their brain growth decreased in proportion to
the time spent inactively watching (Healy 1990). Television really only
presents information to two senses: hearing and sight. In addition, the poor
quality of reproduced sound presented to our hearing and the flashing, colored,
fluorescent over-stimulating images presented to our eyes cause problems in the
development and proper function of these two critical sense organs (Poplawski
1998).
To begin with, a child's
visual acuity and full binocular (three-dimensional) vision are not fully
developed until 4 years of age, and the picture produced on the television
screen is an unfocused (made up of dots of light), two-dimensional image that
restricts our field of vision to the TV screen itself. Images on TV are
produced by a cathode ray gun that shoots electrons at phosphors (fluorescent
substances) on the TV screen. The phosphors glow and this artificially produced
pulsed light projects directly into our eyes and beyond affecting the
secretions of our neuro-endocrine system (Mander 1978). The actual image
produced by dots of light is fuzzy and unfocused so that our eyes, and the eyes
of our children, have to strain to make the image clear. Television, like any electrical
appliance and like power lines, produces invisible waves of electromagnetism.
Last June, a panel convened by the National Institute of Environmental Health
Sciences decided there was enough evidence to consider these invisible waves
(called electromagnetic fields or EMFs) as possible human carcinogens. In the
article it was recommended that children sit at least 4 feet from TV and 18
inches from the computer screen (Gross 1999).
Our visual system, "the ability to search out, scan, focus, and identify
whatever comes in the visual field" (Buzzell 1998), is impaired by
watching TV. These visual skills are also the ones that need to be developed
for effective reading. Children watching TV do not dilate their pupils, show
little to no movement of their eyes (i.e., stare at the screen), and lack the
normal saccadic movements of the eyes (a jumping from one point to the next)
that is critical for reading. The lack of eye movement when watching television
is a problem because reading requires the eyes to continually move from left to
right across the page. The weakening of eye muscles from lack of use can't help
but negatively impact the ability and effort required to read. In addition, our
ability to focus and pay attention relies on this visual system. Pupil
dilation, tracking and following are all part of the reticular activating
system. The RAS is the gateway to the right and left hemispheres. It determines
what we pay attention to and is related to the child's ability to concentrate
and focus. The RAS is not operating well when a child watches television. A
poorly integrated lower brain can't properly access the higher brain.
In addition, the rapid-fire change of television images, which occurs every 5
to 6 seconds in many programs and 2 to 3 seconds in commercials (even less on
MTV), does not give the higher thought brain a chance to even process the
image. It reportedly takes the neocortex anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds to
engage after a stimulus (Scheidler 1994). The neocortex is our higher brain, but
also needs a greater processing time to become involved.
All the color combinations produced on the television screen result from the
activation of only three types of phosphors: red, blue and green. The
wavelengths of visible light produced by the activation of these phosphors
represents an extremely limited spectrum compared to the wavelengths of light
we receive when viewing objects outdoors in the full spectrum of reflected rays
from the sun. Another problem with color television is that the color from it
is almost exclusively processed by the right hemisphere so that left hemisphere
functioning is diminished and the corpus callosum (the pathway of communication
between the brain's hemispheres) is poorly utilized (i.e., poorly myelinated).
Reading a book, walking in nature, or having a conversation with another human
being, where one takes the time to ponder and think, are far more educational
than watching TV. The television -- and computer games -- are replacing these
invaluable experiences of human conversations, storytelling, reading books,
playing "pretend" (using internal images created by the child rather
than the fixed external images copied from television), and exploring nature.
Viewing television represents an endless, purposeless, physically unfulfilling
activity for a child. Unlike eating until one is full or sleeping until one is
no longer tired, watching television has no built-in endpoint. It makes a child
want more and more without ever being satisfied (Buzzell 1998).
Question: Well, what
about watching Sesame Street, isn't it educational for our children? Doesn't it
teach them how to read?
Jane Healy, Ph.D., in her
book, Endangered Minds, wrote an entire chapter entitled "Sesame Street
and the Death of Reading". In addition to the concerns already mentioned
about watching television, Sesame Street and the majority of children's
programming seems to put the left hemisphere and parts of the right hemisphere
into slow waves of inactivity (alpha waves). Television anesthetizes our higher
brain functions and disrupts the balance and interaction between the left and
right hemispheres.
Brain waves can be
measured by an EEG, and variations in recorded brain waves correspond to
different states of activity in the brain. In general, reading produces active,
fast beta waves while television watching leads to an increase in slow alpha
waves in the left hemisphere and at times even in the right hemisphere (Buzzell
1998). Once again, the left hemisphere is the critical center for reading,
writing and speaking. It is the place where abstract symbols (e.g., the letters
of the alphabet) are connected to sounds (phonic skills). The pulsating
fluorescent light source of television may have something to do with promoting
slow wave activity. Our brain "wakes up" to novelty and falls asleep
or habituates to repetitive, "boring" stimuli. Advertising agencies
and many children's shows (including Sesame Street) have had to counter
children's tendency to habituate to television by increasing the frequency of
new images, using flashing colors, close-ups, and startling, often loud,
sounds. These distracters get our attention momentarily but keep us operating
in our lower core and limbic brains.
The lower brain can't discern between images that are real or created on TV,
because discernment is the function of the neocortex. Therefore, when the TV
presents sudden close-ups, flashing lights, etc. as stimuli, the core-limbic
brain immediately goes into a "fight or flight" response with the
release of hormones and chemicals throughout the body. Heart rate and blood
pressure are increased and blood flow to limb muscles is increased to prepare
for this apparent emergency. Because this all happens in our body without the
corresponding movement of our limbs, certain TV programs actually put us in a
state of chronic stress or anxiety. Studies have shown atrophy of the left
hemisphere in adults who are chronically stressed and only functioning from
their core-limbic brain. Even as adults, what we don't use, we lose.
Finally, when our brain is simultaneously presented with visual (images on the
screen) and auditory (sound) stimuli, we preferentially attend to the visual. A
dramatic example of this phenomenon was illustrated when a group of young
children (6-7 years old) were shown a video show where the sound track did not
match the visual action and the children, when questioned, did not appear to
notice the discrepancy. Therefore, even in Sesame Street, studies have shown
that children are not absorbing the content of the show (Healy 1990).
Maybe the most critical argument against watching television is that it affects
the three characteristics that distinguish us as human beings. In the first 3
years of life, a child learns to walk, to talk and to think. Television keeps
us sitting, leaves little room for meaningful conversations and seriously
impairs our ability to think.
Question: What's wrong with using television as just entertainment? I
enjoyed watching Disney films like Snow White.
Television seems to have
a profound effect on our feeling life and therefore, one could argue, on our
soul. As human beings, we become detached from the real world by watching
television. We sit in a comfortable chair, in a warm room, with plenty to eat
and watch a show about people who are homeless, cold and hungry. Our hearts go
out to them, but we do nothing. One could argue that reading a book could
promote the same sense of unreality without action. The phrases "turn off
the TV" or "get your nose out of your book" and "go do
something" have meaning. Nevertheless, while reading a book (that doesn't
have a lot of pictures) the child's mind creates its own pictures and has time
to think about them. These thoughts could actually lead to ideas that inspire a
child or adult to action. TV does not give time for this higher level of
thinking that inspires deeds.
Television projects
images that go directly into our emotional brain. It is said that the words we
hear go into knowledge while the images we see go into our soul. Pictures that
elicit emotion are processed by the limbic system and the right hemisphere of
the neocortex. If no time is given to think about these emotional pictures,
then the left hemisphere is not involved. Once again, watching television often
eliminates the part of our brain that can make sense of, analyze and
rationalize what we are seeing.
We don't forget what we see. The limbic brain is connected to our memory, and
the pictures we see on TV are remembered -- either consciously, unconsciously
or subconsciously. For example, it is almost impossible to create your own
pictures of Snow White from reading a story if you have seen the movie. It is
also true that often one is disappointed when one sees a movie after reading
the book. Our imagination is so much richer than what can be shown on a screen.
The problem with television is that children get used to not using their
imaginative thinking at all, and they don't exercise that part of the brain
(the neocortex) that creates the pictures. Children are not reading enough, and
we aren't reading or telling them enough stories to help their minds create
pictures. Creating pictures is not just entertaining, but the foundation of our
dreams and higher thoughts (intuitions, inspirations and imaginations). We
dream, think and imagine possibilities of the future in pictures.
Finally, the heart is now seen as an organ of perception that can respond to a
stimulus and release a hormone-like substance that influences brain activity.
This phenomenon is referred to as our heart intelligence (Pearce 1992).
Interacting with human beings is essential for the development of this
intelligence. When we stand face to face and look into another person's eyes,
we meet soul to soul and we get a sense of who they really are (Soesman). We
get a sense of whether they mean what they say - in other words, whether they
are enthusiastic and passionate about their subject. We experience their
non-verbal language such as how they move, the tone of their voice, and whether
their gaze shifts around when they talk. This is how we learn to discern
consistency between verbal and non-verbal cues and, therefore, truth.
Television can't give us this intelligence of the heart. It can shock our
emotions and we can cry, laugh or get angry, but these emotions are just reactions.
When human beings speak on TV, children are often doing homework, playing
games, and talking to friends while watching TV. These activities help save
their visual system from the effects of TV, but the underlying message is that
you don't need to listen when another person speaks or comfort anyone if you
hear crying. If the heart, like the brain and probably the rest of our body,
gives off electromagnetic waves (Pearce 1992, Tiller 1999), then there is a
form of subtle energy that only can be experienced between human beings by
relating to each other in the same physical space. This subtle energy can't be
experienced by watching human beings on television. Just as we must use all our
senses to construct higher level thoughts or pictures of an object, empathy and
love for others does not develop from seeing human beings as objects on TV, but
by actively relating, face to face, with each other.
Question: What can we do to help our children's brain develop?
Keep the television
turned off as much as possible. One author recommended avoiding television as
much as possible for the first 12 years of your child's life and then encourage
your child to always read the book first before seeing the movie. It helps to
cover the TV with a cloth or store it away in a closed cabinet or closet. Out
of sight really helps the child keep the TV out of mind (Large 1997). Remember
that what we do serves as a role model for our children. We can't really ask
our children to stop watching TV if we keep doing it - that will eventually
lead to power struggles.
When the television is
on, then try to neutralize its damage. Select the programs carefully and watch
TV with your child so you can talk about what you see. Keep a light on when the
TV is going since that will minimize the effects of the reduced field of vision
and provide a different light source for the eyes. Try to sit at least 4 feet
from the television and 18 inches from the computer screen. Plan to go outside
(to the park, woods, or beach) after viewing television.
Read a lot of books to your children (especially ones without lots of pictures)
and tell your children lots of stories. Children love to hear stories about our
lives when we were little or you can make them up. Bedtime and riding in the
car provide good opportunities for telling stories. Telling our children
stories helps to stimulate their internal picture making capabilities.
Nature! Nature! Nature! Nature is the greatest teacher of patience, delayed
gratification, reverence, awe and observation. The colors are spectacular and
all the senses are stimulated. Many children today think being out in nature is
boring, because they are so used to the fast-paced, action-packed images from
TV (Poplawski 1998). We only truly learn when all our senses are involved, and
when the information is presented to us in such a way that our higher brain can
absorb it. Nature is reality while television is a pseudo-reality.
Pay close attention to your senses and those of your child. Our environment is
noisy and over-stimulating to the sense organs. What a child sees, hears,
smells, tastes, and touches is extremely important to his or her development.
We need to surround our children with what is beautiful, what is good and what
is true. How a child experiences the world has a tremendous influence on how
the child perceives the world as a teenager and adult.
Have children use their hands, feet and whole body performing purposeful
activities. All the outdoor activities of running, jumping, climbing, and
playing jump-rope help develop our children's gross motor skills and myelinate
pathways in the higher brain. Performing household chores, cooking, baking
bread, knitting, woodworking, origami, string games, finger games, circle
games, painting, drawing, and coloring help develop fine motor skills and also
myelinate pathways in the higher brain.
Finally, the future of our children and our society is in the protection and
development of our children's minds, hearts and limbs. What we are aiming for
in the thoughts of our children is best summarized in this fine verse from
William Blake's Auguries of Innocence:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand
And Eternity in an Hour.
Susan R. Johnson, M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Division of
Behavioral and Developmental Pediatrics, UCSF /Stanford Health Care and
Graduate of San Francisco Waldorf Teacher Training Program of Rudolf Steiner
College.
This paper was presented at the Waldorf School of San Francisco on 5/1/99 as
part of a senior project.
It may be freely xeroxed and distributed!
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