MUSKOGEE, Okla. — Instead of plopping infants down in front of a television screen, a better option to help spur brain development is to spend time interacting on a personal level, according to an Oklahoma pediatric nurse practitioner. 

Amy Ceselski works with babies at Muskogee’s Cherokee Nation Three Rivers Health Center. She highly recommends that parents spend one-on-one time by reading, playing and interacting with their children to help develop cognitive brain functions.

“No children under the age of 18 months should be put in front of a screen,” Ceselski said. “They’re not going to develop as well as if they have interaction and outside stimulation.”

Ceselski said the brain is like a muscle. If it is not being used and stimulated, she said, it is not being fully developed.

“I’m a big advocate of getting kids out of the house,” Ceselski said. Even before an infant can talk, she said they can benefit from exposure to new adventures like going to the zoo, a children’s museum or a library.

“Something as simple as going to a state park and looking at leaves can benefit development,” Ceselski said.

Ceselski said about 90 percent of a person’s brain development takes place during the first five years of life. She is a proponent of encouraging parents to follow the American Academy of Pediatrics’ “5 Rs” of early education: reading, rhyming, routines, rewards and relationships.

Ceselski said the American Academy of Pediatrics also encourages parents to limit screen time as a child continues to grow and develop.

Problems begin when media use displaces physical activity, hands-on exploration and face-to-face social interaction in the real world, which is critical to learning, academy experts said. Too much screen time also can harm the amount and quality of sleep.

The academy recommends parents prioritize creative, unplugged playtime for infants and toddlers. Some media can have educational value for children starting at around 18 months of age.

“But it’s critically important that this be high-quality programming, such as the content offered by Sesame Workshop and PBS,” academy experts said. “Parents of young children should watch media with their child to help children understand what they are seeing.”

For school-aged children and adolescents, the idea is to balance media use with other healthy behaviors. Parents should set expectations and boundaries, according to Dr. Megan Moreno, lead author of the policy statement on media use in school-aged children and teens.

“The key is mindful use of media within a family,” Moreno said.

Ceselski said the focus should be on parents spending quality time with their children.

“It’s more than just placing a toy in front of them,” she said, children crave and thrive on the interaction they get with others.

Elswick writes for the Muskogee, Oklahoma Phoenix.