France has banned TV for young children and babies as they have scientifically proven that TV watching disrupts the brain, slows language and learning. This is no surprise to us Waldorfers as this is something that has been known and promoted by Steiner organizations for over 70 years. The ruling has won the praise of the CCFC or Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood. This is an organization of healthcare professionals and concerned parents who are seeking to protect children from being constantly inundated with commercialism and hypnotic sales tactics. I encourage you to join them if you haven't already; information about it is enclosed below my article here. Dr. Susan Linn from the CCFC says the TV ban "sends a strong message that the health and well-being of children is more important than a businesses bottom line."

Scientific Proof and More...

This proves that when it comes to languages, learning and coincidingly, the need for love and human interaction that it cannot be replaced by a mechanical talking box that gives off strong electromagnetic waves. As a mother of three children that are quadlingual, I really encourage others to bring the language and love for the child alive through themselves and not someone else, and certainly not through a computer or TV. What is the problem with banning TV from children? Looks like the real problem going to be for the parents who are addicted to having their children lethargically sedated by the "drug box" called TV. Some of the benefits or changes could be: children forced to play now and hence, act like children, children learning to create and imagine games, art, and toys on their own, children moving more and becoming more active (to the dismay of parents)...the list could go on and on. So, the biggest change is going to need to come from parents and how does one change that? Clearly the first and most important lesson must be tolerance for childhood behavior.

The Companies Bottom Line is Money, but What is a Parents Bottom Line?

It has been my experience that the TV used as an educator/babysitter for an hour is far if not completely inferior to a few minutes of human interaction with a child. Let's not forget the important, powerful and grossly underestimated accessories to learning such as eye-contact, touch, and love.

To quote Kahlil Gibran from The Prophet: "They [the children] come through you but not from you...you may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you...You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth..."

Let us not forget, in the hurry to shoot our children out into the world...often at times prematurely and irreverently- the time it takes to place the arrow on the quiver...to sight it in, to direct it, and pull it back...

It is easy to put our kids in front of the TV and forget about them and even think we are doing them a favor, but lets not forget the hard part of parenthood which calls us to take the time, reach out, and connect with our kids and give our children something that may have not been given to us. If we continue on in the same path that our own parents had led us down-then we in fact cause the future to go backwards and make it like the past, and therefore seek to make our children like us.

Making a Difference in the Future of Tomorrow

Again quoting from The Prophet: "Their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow....life goes not backwards nor tarries with yesterday." So I encourage all of you, who no doubt care about your children very much, to never forget the power you have as a parent to impact your children’s lives and how much they will appreciate that gift from you. Similarly, be more confident in your parenting; trust yourself and your own educational abilities.

We have been led to believe that only schools and institutions can teach-

But never forget the school of the parent’s heart.

In Educational Freedom,

Aurore

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August 21, 2008

Contact: Josh Golin (617.278.4172; jgolin@jbcc.harvard.edu)

For Immediate Release

CCFC Praises France Baby TV Ban; Urges FTC Action in the US

Yesterday, France’s broadcast authority announced that it was banning French channels from marketing TV shows to children under three years old. According to a ruling published by the High Audiovisual Council: “Television viewing hurts the development of children under 3 years old and poses a certain number of risks, encouraging passivity, slow language acquisition, over-excitedness, troubles with sleep and concentration as well as dependence on screens.” The ruling will also require cable operators who air foreign channels with programming for babies to broadcast warnings that say: “Watching television can slow the development of children under 3, even when it involves channels aimed specifically at them.”

The following is the statement of CCFC’s Dr. Susan Linn on the French ruling: “We applaud France’s decision to stop television channels from targeting infants and toddlers. The ruling rightly recognizes the risks of fostering screen dependence upon babies. It also sends an important message that, in France, the wellbeing of infants and toddlers is more important than the bottom line of companies such as BabyFirstTV that exploit our youngest and most vulnerable children by falsely claiming to parents that their programming is educational.

France’s historic ruling highlights the failure of the United States to effectively regulate the predatory baby media industry. It has been more than two years since the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint against BabyFirstTV for false and deceptive marketing, yet the FTC has still not responded. On French television, programming for babies has been banned. In this country, we cannot even prevent the producers of television for babies from deceiving parents.”

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is a national coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents who counter the harmful effects of marketing to children through action, advocacy, education, research, and collaboration among organizations and individuals who care about children. CCFC supports the rights of children to grow up – and the rights of parents to raise them – without being undermined by rampant commercialism. For more information, please visit: http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. -Martin Luther King