Does your preschool having issues sleeping? Maybe not all the time, but even just occassional sleep issues? I have a toddler (not quite a pre-schooler yet), who has always had sleep issues, and if you are a parent of a kid with sleep problems YOU WILL TRY ANYTHING!
When I ran across an article about Dora helping my kid sleep, on MSNBC News, of course I clicked.
Research has suggested a link between the kinds of media young kids see during the day and sleep problems at night. Ok, intriguing…
Michelle Garrison, the study’s lead author from the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, randomly divided 565 Seattle children and their families into two groups “to see whether changing media use to avoid violent or frightening content could improve kids’ sleep.” Garrison and her colleagues, who published their findings in the journal Pediatrics on Monday,worked with children between the ages of three and five years old.
How did the study work?
Group 1: Parents of 276 children were encouraged to change their kids’ viewing habits over six months by substituting only “healthy media.” Researchers provided channel guides and suggested appropriate shows, such as Dora the Explorer, Sesame Street and Curious George.
Group 2: Parents of 289 children were sent healthy eating information instead.
The Data: Each family then kept diaries and answered surveys to track their children’s sleep and viewing habits. The questionnaires were collected at the start of the study and again six, 12 and 18 months later.
The Results: Media children consume throughout the day has an impact on their sleep. You can view all of the findings here, but the bottomline is that if your kids watch something violent or scary, they will think about it all day and into the night. It does impact their sleep as well, so it’s important to limit media consumption, but also make sure it’s age appropriate.
Good to know!
What do you think? Do you agree with the findings of this study? Do your kids watch age-appropriate TV?
