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She’s the TV mom everyone loves to hate. Kate Gosselin returns to the tube with her children in tow in her new series, Kate Plus 8, airing this Sunday, June 6 at 9pm on TLC.
David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun says she won’t be doing so without a new level of scrutiny from lawmakers and mental health experts. He reports that “psychiatrists and child advocates say the shows can invade a child’s privacy and confuse a child’s sense of identity.”
Zurawik quotes Dr. Michael Brody, chairman of the Television and Media Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (who knew there was such a thing?) as saying, “Kids in these kinds of shows are not having a childhood, and you don’t have to be a scientist to know what’s going to happen to some of them as they get older. It can be a real disaster for them.” He continues, “Just doing retakes, where they stage a scene and then reshoot it again because something went wrong, really screws up a kid’s sense of reality.”
Anyone who has been privy to the reality of “reality” TV will tell you that it is definitely not for the faint of heart. A talented and experienced friend who was recently on the set of a popular summer reality show left feeling that reality TV is “evil and not to be trusted.” Certainly by agreeing to appear on a reality show, you have to surrender to the fact that what happens in the editing room is out of your hands; you have to be okay with however you end up being portrayed in the final cut. The problem with the Gosselin kids is, they’re not old enough to understand any of that, nor to make their own decisions. Continue reading »
Former child star Gary Coleman, best known for his role as wisecracking Arnold Willis on 80s sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes,” died Friday at 42.
The actor suffered an intracranial hemorrhage after falling at his Santaquin, Utah, home on Wednesday and had been in a coma, according to EW.com.
For every former child star who makes it (Ron Howard, Jodie Foster), there are countless who can’t bear the difficult transition to adulthood (including Coleman’s ‘Strokes’ co-stars Todd Bridges and the late Dana Plato). In Coleman’s case, he had it harder than most given that his health condition literally prevented him from growing up.
Coleman suffered from a kidney disease that stunted his growth and required two transplant operations. His guest starring roles on The Jeffersons and Good Times helped him land a starring role at the age of 10 on the sitcom Diff’rent Strokes. The show aired on NBC from 1978-1986.
Playing one of two adopted black sons of a rich white widower, Coleman enchanted audiences and critics with his lively performance and his memorable catchphrase, “Whatchoo talkin’ about, Willis? Continue reading »
Back when I was a kid, it seemed as if all my friends’ moms were addicted to soap operas. Today’s moms are more likely to have the TV tuned to kiddie shows — which is why it’s not such a surprise to hear that The Walt Disney Company will eliminate its SoapNet cable channel and replace it with a new network targeted to preschoolers.
Since it aired soap opera reruns, the 10-year-old SoapNet has been relatively cheap for Disney to operate. But, as Nickelodeon has discovered with Nick Jr. (formerly Noggin), preschool television programming is big business.
The new commercial-free channel will be called Disney Junior, which some critics say emulates Nickelodeon’s Nick Jr. Continue reading »
Just a few weeks ago, I brought up the idea of a TV-free summer to my family, and no one freaked out. In fact, once we started talking about all the things we could do instead of watching TV, they got pretty excited about it. A couple of hours of TV here and there aren’t going to hurt anyone, in my opinion, but summer’s free and easy schedule and beautiful weather make it the perfect time to unplug.
We’re keeping the TV off all summer along (unless it’s been raining for days, I’ve decided, since I’ve only got so much sanity), but you don’t have to throw your TV out the window to get your kids to reduce their screen time. The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a partnership of the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation, shares eight great tips for easing your kids off the couch:
Nick Jr. will begin airing a new series June 1st called The Olive Branch, produced by Josh Selig’s Little Light Foundation. The program has been endorsed by the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and UNICEF and its mission is to foster conflict-resolution around the world. Tutu understands that children’s programming can be an invaluable learning tool and says, “The Olive Branch is a wonderful example of television that will make a positive contribution to the world. It will be understood and appreciated by children in every country.” The show is performed entirely without words and is scored with “rich, classical music” by Emmy Award-winning composer, J. Walter Hawkes. The series is hand-drawn by Pablo Smith of The Wonder Pets! and 3rd & Bird. Continue reading »
A parents group is threatening to cause a $#*!-storm for CBS affiliates if they don’t do something about a new sitcom in the works. The Parents Television Council, which monitors obscenities on network TV, said they’ll challenge the broadcast license of any network channel that airs the new sitcom before 10 p.m. or even advertises it.
The TV show in question is likely about a curmudgeonly 73-year-old father who dispenses nuggets of wisdom to his adult son still living at home. But that’s not the obscene part (though really, get your own place, man). Continue reading »
My daughter, circa 18-months, watching Curious George.
I’ll never forget the poignancy of what she said. I had just turned off the television when my daughter, red in the face, stomping her feet and punching her fists in the air, shouted, “Maybe they should have never invented TVs!” She choked back a few breaths and said, “I wish Grandma was born a million years ago so we never had to watch TV,” and then collapsed into my arms and sobbed. I knew exactly what she meant. The paradox of childhood is that despite having very little life experience, kids seem to intrinsically understand things, as if they have all the secrets of life tucked inside their little sleeves, just waiting for the right moment to teach us something really important. Like, sometimes things that are meant to make us happy can make us resentful and angry if we get in too deep.
Which is to say, for the umpteenth time, if kids watch excessive amounts of TV, it will ruin their lives. Parents know this. But a new study released yesterday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine reiterates that toddlers who watch too much TV will end up doing poorly in school.
University of Montreal and University of Michigan researchers found that “each additional hour of TV that children watched at 29 months corresponded with a 7% decrease in classroom engagement, a 6% drop in math achievement, a 13% decrease in physical activity on weekends, a 10% increase in video-game playing and a 10% greater likelihood of getting teased, assaulted or insulted by classmates” by age 10. According to the study, television consumes nine hours of the average 2-and-a-half-year-old’s week, increasing to 15 hours by age four-and-a-half. (I admit, my four-and-a-half year old watches 15 hours of TV a week. Does this mean I can check off a milestone on her development chart?) Purportedly kids with “educated mothers watched less; those from single-parent homes watched more.” I’m an educated single-parent, so I guess it all evens out in the wash.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends parents watch TV with their children and discuss program content with them. Because I’m a modern/neurotic/dedicated parent and I want my kid to have a trouble-free life, I did that for a long time. It was easier when I was married. But I still tried as a single mom. Until the syrupy-sweet voices of the cast of Clifford began to lull me to sleep on the couch. And I realized I could actually get some work done while my daughter watched her morning shows. So for the past few months, I’ve let PBS babysit my kid for two hours a day. That automatically means she’s gonna be a failure by age 10? I don’t think so. Continue reading »
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