Featured Article: Highlights of Joan Treadaway Talk
2-13-2009
By Joan Treadaway
Many of us were very fortunate to hear Joan Treadaway
speak last week on the topic of media. Joan is a Waldorf
School Consultant and has a business, Childhood Consulting
Services, in Prescott. Joan spoke about how the television
anaesthetizes the higher brain and parts of the right
and left brain are inactive. No movement in the eyes occur
while watching television. The pulsating light of the
television slows down brain waves. We also must realize
the media is our environment and children as well as adults
are immersed in it. Our goal as parents is to minimize
the negative effects of the media. Children today are
constantly plugged in with ipods and cell phones. Video
games blur reality and exposure to violence in the media
has been shown to increase violence in children. They
become desensitized. From eighteen months to seven years,
children live in the realm of imitation, imitating whatever
they hear or see. They have an inability to discern reality
from fantasy.
Waldorf teachers tell living stories to their classes.
Television presents deadened pictures and can erase the
pictures the child has carried with him through the day
from school. If your child watches television, please
do not have him/her watch during the school week or before
school.
Suggestions:
As parents, turn off the cell phone when you pick up
your child from school and during meals. Develop the art
of conversation at the dinner table (and have family meals
as often as possible). Choose one media free day - no
radio, no cell phones, no video games or television. Participate
in TV
Turnoff Week, April 23 - 29. Experience life without
television for seven days with families across the country
and the world. Then, talk as a family how this experience
effected you. But, you say, what do we do? Play games,
read books, take walks, cook together, do puzzles, make
play dough, practice a musical instrument.
In the office we have many handouts on the media that
Joan distributed. We will also be receiving a book list
for those who are interested in more information on the
media. Please join us on March 25th for Joan's next presentation
on "Parenting the Adolescent".
