According to the study, “Reducing Children’s Television-Viewing Time: A Qualitative Study of Parents and Their Children,” school-age children are spending more time watching TV than the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendation of no more than two hours of screen time per day.
Researchers interviewed 180 parents and children ages 6 to 13 about their television viewing habits. Most of the children reported spending at least 3 hours per day watching TV. The average home in this sample had four TV sets; nearly two thirds had a TV in the child’s bedroom, and nearly half had a TV set in the kitchen or dining room. While most parents expressed an interest in taking steps toward reducing their children’s TV time, they didn’t know how to begin. The study suggests strategies to reduce TV viewing time such as turning off the TV during mealtimes, keeping a television set out of the child’s bedroom and limiting television on school days.