TV Can Be a Kid’s Window to the World

At 20 months old, my daughter, Sophie, is expanding her vocabulary on a nearly day-by-day basis. Some of the words are even decipherable to adults.

Although, blessedly, she knows how to say “mommy” and “daddy,” she’s never addressed her newborn brother, Ben, by name. She prefers “baby.”

Similarly, she’s never spoken the names of the five other toddlers in the neighborhood that she sees and plays with regularly.

At latest count, however, she can readily identify at least six television characters.

The first was Laa-Laa on PBS’ “Teletubbies.” For a while, it was her shorthand for the series itself, usually said with giddy excitement when the baby’s face that heralds each episode appeared on the screen.

She’s picked up on Po since then and, for some reason, loves the vacuum cleaner, Noo-Noo. Sophie hasn’t quite mastered the two other characters, Dipsy and Tinky Winky.

Arthur, the bespectacled aardvark with his own PBS series, is also recognized, probably because Sophie has a matching stuffed toy. “Sesame Street’s” Elmo is a favorite, along with his colleague Mr. Noodle. (Technically, she also calls him Noo-Noo. But she knows the difference.)

She also identifies the Disney Channel’s “Out of the Box” series by saying “box.” She still hasn’t said the names of the show’s stars, Tony and Viv.

To recap: That’s TV Characters 6, Real Friends 0.

Is that a horrifying indictment of her parents? Some might think so. I’ll bet it’s not that unusual. It’s another example--if one were ever needed--of the sheer pervasiveness of television and how it infiltrates even the youngest developing brains.

Mind you, television isn’t Sophie’s babysitter. She runs around in the yard, splashes in the kiddie pool and hurls food across the room like any other youngster. The dog down the street and, yes, her friends light up her eyes more than anything she sees on the screen.

But television has its place. Even toddlers need to wind down sometime. Her parents certainly do. A short time in front of the tube is often just the respite everyone needs.

So far, so good.

The experience, though, is already teaching us more than it’s teaching her.

For most adults, most healthy adults, television is a passive tool in our lives. We have our favorite shows, sure, but TV is basically something that can be turned on or off at will whenever we have some spare moments to be entertained.

Children haven’t learned that yet. They don’t know the characters they see aren’t real. They don’t know how to distinguish quality from dreck.

And they don’t know how to ignore the incessant commercials. An even more frightening moment than Sophie learning the names of TV characters will come on the day she insists we buy the toy she’s seen advertised on television.

To date, all the arguments over V-chips, parental ratings and what used to be called the family hour have existed on an esoteric level. Now they’re becoming real for my wife and me.

Already, we don’t want Sophie in the room when “Sex and the City” is on. Clearly, she’s absorbing more than we realize from that box in the corner. That’s one night when bedtime is strictly enforced--for her, of course, not Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha.

Although we don’t want her to become dependent on television, we don’t want her to fear it, either.

The people who encourage folks to unplug or throw away their TVs have their hearts in the right place--they want youngsters to be active, not sedentary--but their methods are neither realistic nor desirable.

Good television can be a window to the world before someone can safely explore it on their own. TV can teach. It can reinforce values. Although I can vouch that the ranks of people who wish to see a certain purple dinosaur carcass float up on a beach have expanded by one, there’s some pretty decent television out there for youngsters.

So it’s not a bad thing that Sophie can shout “Elmo” when she sees her favorite red puppet.

Hey, at least she hasn’t said “Jerry Springer.”

Yet.