Why Do People Keep Saying Television Limits Imagination? [Bloggin’ on the ETC]

Since becoming a mother, I keep on running across the same weird claim. It goes something like this: TV is bad for kids because it limits their imagination.

Tell your kids to get outside and play! Don’t let them veg out in front of a TV all day! They’ll never learn imaginative play. I’ve had other mothers and even teachers tell me this in conversations about why they didn’t allow their own children to watch television or play with iPhones or really have any screen time whatsoever.

What makes the claim weird is that the moms who tell me this are rarely creatives.

I also have a hard time believing this claim, because I 1) make a living off my imagination, and 2) was one of those kids who was practically raised by a television. I know a few people who were raised without televisions. I won’t speak to their imaginations, but none of them are in creative fields. And I don’t personally know one creative who grew up without a television in their home. In fact, some of the most creative people I know watch obscene amounts of television to this day.

In many ways, television gives children more great stuff to imagine. How limited would a toddler’s world view be if there weren’t any children’s programming today. When I was a child, I built living room forts and pretended to drive the car to places like K-Mart. When I picked my daughter up at preschool the other day, she and some other kids were pretending to have tea on a rocket, which they planned to take to the flower shop before they headed to outer space. I didn’t even know China existed when I was three. My daughter has already asked to go several times, and sometimes pretends she’s flying there, just like Kai Lin from Ni Hao, Kai Lin. 

To be sure, there are many good reasons to limit your child’s screen time. I won’t got into all of them here, but I can believe that it’s not particularly helpful as far as developing good attention-span goes. Also, it lends to a sedentary lifestyle that seems dangerous to encourage in this age of oversized childhood obesity rates.

But if anything, I’m more inclined to limit TV, because I don’t necessarily want my daughter to go into the arts. Maybe if she’s not entertained in this way, she’ll be more likely to choose a more practical career path, despite the fact that both of her parents make their livings as creatives.

And when other parents tell me that TV limits their children’s imaginations, I wonder if they truly understand how imagination works. I think they think of imagination like a flower that you have to tend and nourish with lots of sunshine and quality dirt. In actuality imagination is a tenacious weed and pretty impossible to kill. It’s also somewhat magical because you can’t just encourage a strong imagination. Your kid either has one or s/he doesn’t. Imagination grows in both ghettos and mansions, and it’s not something that can be squelched by lazy parenting.

So sure, turn off the television and tell your kids to go outside. It’s healthy and on a happily selfish note, you won’t have to listen to the annoying chatter of children’s programs all day. But if you do let your children veg out in front of the television, don’t worry that you’re killing any chance they have of being creative when they grow up. That’s totally up to them and whatever creative talent they’ve been blessed with.