Study: TV At Night Hurts Grades

(AP)  Parents now have science to back them up when they say, "Turn off the TV. It's a school night."

Middle school students who watch TV or play video games during the week do worse in school, a new study finds, but weekend viewing and gaming doesn't affect school performance much.

"On weekdays, the more they watched, the worse they did," said study co-author Dr. Iman Sharif of Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx. "They could watch a lot on weekends and it didn't seem to correlate with doing worse in school."

Children whose parents allowed them to watch R-rated movies also did worse in class, and for boys, that effect was especially strong. The findings are based on a survey of 4,500 students in 15 New Hampshire and Vermont middle schools. The study appears in the October issue of Pediatrics.

Weekend viewing and gaming slightly hurt school performance, but only when the students spent more than four hours each day at it over the weekend.

The study didn't look at grades or test scores, relying instead on students' own rating of their performance from "excellent" to "below average." Sharif said other studies have shown that students generally inflate their actual school performance when asked. But since both good and bad students overrate their performance, she said, self-reporting is reliable.

Researchers took into account the possible effect of different parenting styles as reported by the students, and they still found weekday TV viewing, video games and R-rated movie-watching harmful.

The researchers did not ask specific questions about homework rules at home, said Sharif, who has three children, ages 7, 11 and 15. Her children watch about an hour of TV after school and then "it goes off and they do homework," she said.

The researchers didn't speculate on why boys might be more affected by R-rated movies than girls.

But Douglas Gentile, who does similar research at Iowa State University, said boys may be watching more violent R-rated movies that make them more aggressive. The aggression may lead to poor school performance, said Gentile, who was not involved in the new study.

"This study should hammer home to parents that this is really serious," Gentile said. "One question all parents are going to be faced with (from their children) is, 'Can I have a TV in my bedroom?' There's a simple two-letter answer for that."

Previous studies have found links between the ability to learn and TV watching, including a study that found that children with TVs in their bedrooms scored about eight points lower on math and language arts tests than children without bedroom TVs.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that older children watch no more than two hours daily of "quality" programming and that televisions be kept out of children's rooms.

[ginnyzach]

I am the parent of 2 teens who watch tv during the week. They both have tv's in their rooms. I do monitor what they watch. My daughter is 14, basketball captain, Pres. of Jr. National Honor Society, plays tennis, and involved in her church group. She has a 98.3 average at her middle school. My son is a solid B student at his High School. He is 16, plays soccer, member of the chess club and involved in his church group. Parents HAVE to monitor their children in every aspect of their lives. They are children, not adults who are capable to making all the right decisions. That is our JOB as parents. To guide and protect. We do eat supper as a family at the table most nights and attend church together. We watch tv together alot in the evenings. My daughter is a big fan of the Disney Channel and my son watches Cartoon Network, Discovery, and the Learning Channel alot. R rated programming is not acceptable to watch to any children. That is why there is a rating. That is poor parenting. This is my opinion.