REVIEW

Occasionally you come across a book which confirms your suspicions or, dare I say, prejudices. Martin Large has written such a book, in which he condemns the 'screen culture' to which children are subjected.

He refers to wide-ranging research which proves that children's development is being inhibited mentally, physically and socially by exposure to TV, video and computers.

The 11 chapters cover the wide-ranging physical and social hazards of screen culture, limiting exposure to electronic media, coping strategies for families with older children and, most importantly, reclaiming childhood for children.

Each chapter has a resumé at the end and the whole book is thoroughly referenced. There is an extensive bibliography and resource list and four appendices on damage limitation.

Martin Large set out to give parents information about the influence of screen culture so that they can make informed choices, and his findings make compelling, if horrifying, reading. His practical suggestions, however, empower readers to take charge of their children's upbringing and make it essential reading for all parents.

I urge you to read this important book which is part of the Hawthorn Press' Early Years series and is available from bookshops or online.

My reading this week seems to have been dominated by the effects of screen culture on children. My children hated me for not letting them have TV in their bedrooms. Usual peer pressure things: 'Everyone else has a TV, stereo system, PlayStation, computer, personal phone line, direct access to Cape Canaveral.'

Martin Large, author of Set Free Childhood: Parents' survival guide for coping with computers and TV, advocates no TV or PC in bedrooms. No TV at all under the age of two.

He suggests that TV should not be a room's focus and that if possible it should be in a cupboard with doors! Commercials and advertising aimed at under-12s should be banned.

Deborah Shipman, MP, is putting forward an 'early day motion' on banning all TV advertising to the under-fives. There is something decidedly sinister about targeting ads at children, because they fit in so seamlessly that influences are subliminal.

Martin Large also suggests that the family should not watch TV for a whole week! Other activities should be provided, but my guess is that arguments would break out as to when the week would begin.
Think of what you might miss during a week: episodes of favourite soaps; international sport fixtures; and that is only terrestrial television. Sky's the limit. I would be the first to admit to time-wasting in front of a screen. As an adult, I know it is a waste of time, yet I still do it, so how much simpler is it for a child to take the easy option? It is a displacement activity. You do not have to choose - just press the button and it is done for you.

So we need to help our children by providing them with alternative leisure equipment. I mean toys, of course, and books, drawing materials, dressing-up clothes, dens, cardboard boxes and construction kits.
But it has to be attractive, otherwise it can be just another bolt-on to homework. Work on the pleasure to be gained from achievement.

A note was recently sent out to parents at one school, where it was found that even key stage 1 children had been staying up to watch Big Brother.
Quite apart from the time element, it ends at 10pm, this is hardly suitable viewing for young children (or indeed anyone, but that is just a personal opinion).

A survey carried out from 1996 to 2001 by the Broadcasting Standards Commission and Independent Television Commission found that one-in-five children watches TV after the 9pm watershed. The report makes uncomfortable, but predictable, reading.

Children are so used to having the TV turned on that they cannot imagine life without it. Some children find it impossible to go to sleep without the TV on and parents are reluctant to turn it off because it leads to arguments.

As a worst-case scenario, screen culture can turn a family home into a boarding house - people microwaving their separate meals and taking them off to their rooms to watch TV alone. Everyday communication breaks down. People in the chat room are known better than your own family.

Sound like a sci-fi nightmare? It could be coming to a home near you.

Liz Rhodes, Primary school teacher

Set Free Childhood makes a significant, if controversial, contribution to the debate surrounding the impact of TV and other electronic media on children's health and well being. Teachers would do well to have the research provided by Martin Large at their fingertips, not only to facilitate informed decisions, but also to encourage discussion among parents. The book provides excellent resource material for Parents' Evenings and is suitable for a parents' lending library.

Set Free Childhood brings together all manner of findings on 'the age of e-overload'. Beginning with health hazards and going on to social, emotional, cognitive and moral effects of our e-media, much relevant information becomes accessible in one straightforward book. Some of the information is drastically unappealing, such as the estimate that by the end of primary school American children may have watched up to 8000 murders on TV, more if you include videos and computer games. Who in the world would want their precious children to watch even one murder, ever?

Of course, reading this book in South Africa does make one wish for local research on our particular situation. Perhaps we are not yet quite as far-gone as Britain and the USA? For example, some 36% of British under-fours have a TV in their bedrooms, and the National Curriculum prescribes a computer in every pre-school and infant classroom. In that case this book could serve us as a wake-up call. If we can only pay heed before it is too late and our children also show 'an epidemic of learning difficulties, anti-social behaviour, eating problems, sleeplessness, language delay, a general sense of dissatisfaction and a whole raft of emotional problems'. Certainly it could be said that to some extent we are already feeling these terrible ramifications.

One could also wish the South African nation to wake up to Large's observations on the commercial exploitation of childhood by means of advertising images directed so persistently and manipulatively at an age group that is unable to exercise discrimination or independent judgement. Sweden already sets the example of having banned television and Internet advertising to children.

Set Free Childhood calls itself 'a parents' survival guide to coping with computers and TV'. As such, it makes an ideal gift to new parents. Large points out that it is so much easier to circumvent electronic addiction in the first place than to cure it later. Consequently, in this age of the omnipresent screen, it is necessary to be aware of the downside as well as the benefits of our screen culture so that intelligent decisions can be made regarding such issues as:

• Up to what age will media use be limited?
• How will it be controlled so that children can have a childhood?
• How will it be monitored so that the best use can be made of it once children are old enough to benefit?

As with other child rearing issues, half the battle is won if the parents are in agreement and committed to work energetically together.

For families already enmeshed in e-media, but wanting to change, Large helps with weaning strategies as well as with guidelines for helping children who are used to being entertained at the push of a button. He explains what screen addiction is and gives pointers on how to identify it. Large points out firmly that the electronic media make good servants but bad masters and that misuse can have incalculable lifelong consequences.