Holy Pediatrician Overreach, Batman?

Last updated on: June 29, 2014 at 2:38 pm by Jane the Actuary

Holy Pediatrician Overreach, Batman? 2014-06-29T14:38:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Yes, playing on my post title from Friday (alternatively, I might have said, “the AAP has jumped the shark”), but the American Academy of Pediatricians has outdone itself this time. You’ll remember them, of “no TV before age 2” fame. The new policy is that pediatricians are instructed to recommend parents to read to their children daily, beginning in infancy.

I originally read about this at joannejacobs.com, and here’s the description of the policy from the AAP News site, and the policy statement itself. Some key excerpts:

The AAP recommends that pediatric providers promote early literacy development as an important evidencebased intervention at health supervision visits for children beginning in infancy and continuing at least until the age of school entry . . .

The 2011–2012 National Survey of Children’s Health found that 60% of American children from birth to 5 years of age from families whose incomes were 400% of the federal poverty threshold or greater were read to daily, and only 34% of children from families whose incomes were below 100% of the poverty threshold were read to daily. These numbers indicate that, even in higher-income families, many children do not experience the enhanced engagement and language-rich parent-child interactions, including book handling, print exposure, and other early literacy experiences, afforded by daily shared reading. . .

All families need to hear the important message that reading aloud to their children is crucial, especially in an era in which competing entertainment imperatives, such as screen time (television, cinema, video games, and computers), may limit family interactions and live language exposures of even very young children. Although most research has focused on literacy promotion for families of lower socioeconomic status, pediatricians should remember to educate all families about the importance of reading aloud to young children because even in afﬂuent and educated families with plenty of books at home, many parents do not read with their children on a daily basis. Promoting literacy with parents of children beginning in infancy supports the recommendations of the AAP that children younger than 2 years not view electronic media and that older children and youth have no more than 2 hours daily of media exposure by offering parents a positive alternative for entertaining young children, for nurturing early relationships, and for developing healthy bedtime routines. The positive reinforcement of repeated developmentally appropriate encouragement in the context of the primary care visit reminds parents again and again of the importance of their “face time,” interactive conversations, and their own evolving and essential relationship with their children, which is critical to setting a young child’s developmental trajectory and life course.

Now, I think that reading to children is a good thing. We’ve tried to make a practice of this in our home, though now this largely consists of reading with my 7-year-old, who just finished first grade, and the “with” usually means having him read a Magic Tree House book aloud to me, or taking turns reading a more difficult book.

But infants?

If there is data that shows that reading to infants has benefits, then I’m quite certain that it’s a matter of “correlation
causation.” Infants who are willing to be “read to” could, potentially, be the sort of kids who will later do well academically. And parents who are willing to push ahead on “reading to infants” are more likely to be ambitious enough to push their kids academically later.

And, indeed, the advice to “read to” infants often acknowledges that they’ll more likely want to chew on the book, or throw it. At best you can them to look at a few pictures. But, to infant-“reading” promoters, it’s all about getting the baby, as they become a toddler and preschooler, to undrestand that a book, and printed words, are very special things — a form of indoctrination that is almost religious in nature, in the way that parents will begin teaching religion to their children with simple prayers and reverent references to Jesus or Heavenly Father.

What’s more, the AAP is headed even further down the road of “parenting is really, really hard.” First they’ve said “no screen time below age two” and emphasized the need for one-on-one parental interaction — a very new thing, and surely quite alien to our grandparents. Now they’re saying, for those parents who don’t know what to do with their babies, that the answer is to read to them. (As if parents haven’t figured out that reading can be an option, or other one-on-one interactions.) Isn’t that the first step towards the overscheduled world of many children today, in which they simply don’t know how to entertain themselves because they’ve never had enough “alone time”? And doesn’t this just add to the “requirements” of good parenting that parents are faced with, leading to viewing parenting as a burden rather than a joy?

And what a high standard! “If you don’t read to your infant DAILY! you’re an inferior parent, leaving them unprepared for school.” I have my doubts about the study above — or rather, I suspect that, of the 60% and 34% of children who were “read to” daily, a substantial portion of them were “read to” at daycare during scheduled daily storytime.

Here are my experiences:

Two years old seems to be about the right age for a child to be able to enjoy a book, and enjoy the routine of storytime. For my oldest, I tried dilligently when he was younger, but without much success — maybe towards the later part of toddlerhood (I admit — this was some 12 years ago, and my memory is bad) he started to have some level of interest for a few minutes of storytime. But his lack of interest earlier certainly added to the new-parent stress.

My middle and youngest child got their daily dose of “being read to” at a much younger age, pretty much by virtue of the fact that they were part of the audience, more or less oblivious to what was going on, when the oldest and then middle son had their before-bed storytime. And, yes, there were favorite books: there was a stretch when my oldest wanted Go Dog, Go every night (though we would skip lots of middle pages to shorten it), and my youngest was fond of Curious George (or maybe that was my middle son), and books about construction vehicles. And they’ve all turned out fine — my 14 year old likes science fiction and my 11 year old, fantasy. The youngest isn’t quite a fully independent reader, but nearly there.

But in infancy? Give me a break.

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