TV: On?

According to Christakis et al, early childhood television viewing is linked to ADHD at age 7. This is further backed up by studies that indicate that viewing at 0-years can cause delayed development of the cerebral cortex (and, I'm guessing, cause -- yup -- ADHD!). All of this should lead scientific minded parents like us to not allow our beautiful, unblemished child to be exposed to the flashy shots, the quick transitions, and the harmful frames per second that could in any way hamper her maturation into the Super Being that we know she will someday become (and is!) Lesson? No TV for Ara! One problem: SHE LIKES IT! I'd been told when I was pregnant that if you sing a song to the baby in utero, or read it (her!) a book the baby will calm to those same sounds once born. Well, Ara started out life in the womb being exposed to such hits as Weeds, The Entourage, Big Love, daily Daily Shows and Colbert Reports, and let's not forget, seasons upon seasons of Will & Grace. So guess what calms her down now? Yup: Theme songs. As soon as the tinny piano of W&G issues forth from the laptop (watched on fully-paid-for DVD, of course!) little Ara stops her whimpering, and quiets right down! This was fine at first. Even a nice feature! "Oh - how nice! Songs that will calm the screaming howling baby!". I made sure that she didn't look at the screen, because, knowing what I know, how could I consider myself a responsible parent if I didn't? Positioning her away from the screen was easy enough - we'd prop her on our laps, and away we'd go - into television bliss. Alas, one day the theme songs stopped working. Ara was no longer quieted by the gentle strains of "Little Boxes" or even "God Only Knows" (a real favorite!). This was chalked up to "development", since it seems that every day, something that had worked as a soothing mechanism, magically stops working (much to our chagrin) But then, during a particularly exciting episode of Rock Star: Supernova, Ara started fussing loudly. (by "fussing loudly" I mean wailing at the top of her lungs) This is a show that we watch live, so no pausing was possible; immediate action was required! We initiated the "burp hold", in which we grab Ara around her tummy, and face her out from us while "enthusiastically" bouncing her up and down. This is a stationary version of the "burp walk" which is more effective, because it keeps her both distracted (changing scenery!) and also burps her at the same time. But obviously, moving around and watching Rock Star at the same time is completely impossible, so the lesser version had to be used. As soon as we got her in the usually insufficient hold, she stopped fussing. It was miraculous. Plus, supreme Rocker, Ryan Star (the "dark horse") was delivering a riveting version of the previously uninteresting Stones hit "Paint it Black" (I can't beLIEVE Gilby, Tommy and Jason didn't like it more - Navarro: I'm with you! What a REVEAL!) We were captivated! So, it was a good few performances before we realised why things had become so peaceful and quiet: Ara was Watching TV! We tried turning her around during the commercials, but it was clear: if we wanted to watch Rockstar, she was going to have to watch it too. And so, for our own petty and evil reasons, we jeopardised our child's cognitive development. "But just this once" we promised. Since then, we tried watching TV with her turned around facing us, but now that Ara's got almost full control of her head, she realised that she could simply crane her neck and watch over her shoulder! She can also tip her head backwards to watch upside down! This girl is willing to go to great acrobatic lengths to get her hit! (Please note that us not watching TV in solidatiry with our tv-t-totaller baby is not an option) Part of me doesn't believe in this whole ADHD being caused by TV thing. Of course, stats don't lie, but I know that if TV was so deadly for babies, then I'd be doing a lot worse in life! My first phrase was, after all, "TV: On?" So, maybe I'll have to put up with my daughter following in my footsteps as a hyper TV addict. But we may have to put her in detox after all, if not for her mental development, then for her emotional state. Ara got upset WAY out of proportion when Alison was kicked off Project Runway, and is having quite a difficult time putting up with the political debate caused by the imminent christening of the Steven Colbert Hid in Hungary (17-million votes, one cast by Ara!). No. It won't do. So no more TV for little Ara. Until she turns 3. And then it's all TV, all the time! Don't worry sweetee - we'll tape all the back eps for you!