Every year for the past decade, it has been my job to go into people’s homes and visit them and their kids. One thing that I find that almost 99 percent of families have in common is that television is a huge part of their lives. Most of the time the TV is positioned in the family room, and too often it never goes off even when I come.

Now, my first few years on the job I struggled with this, and tried really hard to talk over the TV and compete with Barney, Elmo or whoever was on. Now I realize I can’t compete, and usually just nicely tell the parents I am no match for fuzzy muppets that sing and dance, and usually they honestly don’t even realize the TV was on. Why? Because in a lot of homes the TV NEVER goes off. I have seen times when the TV goes off and the kids go into shock and go over and try to get it back on, and here is another surprise … most kids older than a year can even operate the remote control better than me!

Parents as Teachers statistics tell us the huge influence television has on our kids. It documents that the average American spends about four hours a day watching TV. At that rate, by age 65, the typical American will have spent nine years of life watching TV! In children, too much TV has been linked to obesity, poor grades, lack of imaginative play, inferior reading skills and poor social skills.

Now I am certainly not telling people to throw out their TV sets, and I will admit that there are — thanks to Disney and PBS — some shows that, in moderation, are not all bad. Again, the key word is moderation. Actually the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend TV for kids under 2, and after this they recommend limiting it to no more than an hour a day. (They also say NEVER put a TV in a child’s bedroom!)

I recently went on a home visit to visit two brothers who were about 3 and 4. Their mom was beside herself because these boys were fighting 24/7. I realized five minutes into the visit they had no issue with kicking the snot out of me either … and as a wood block whizzed by my head, I noticed the video shelf, which housed every Power Ranger DVD ever put out. The boys both had on Power Rangers shirts and there were piles of Power Rangers toys in the toy box. I gave mom a suggestion that didn’t probably make me too popular with the brothers, but I asked her to put away the Power Ranger toys and DVDs until our next visit and not play any DVDs or watch any shows where there was violence or activities that the boys might imitate.

I can’t tell you the difference in the boys by the next visit. Mom had put in Magic School Bus DVDs and they were now imitating science activities instead death holds. I saw a wonderful short documentary years before at an in-service called “Barney vs. the Power Rangers.” Child psychologists placed hidden cameras to watch kids watching TV at their day care, and their parents were in a room nearby.

First they put on Barney. The kids were up and singing and dancing, holding hands and happy, imitating the activities they saw. Within minutes of switching to the Power Rangers the kids — even the sweetest, mildest little girl of the group — were jumping, imitating kicks and violent swings, and a child had been hit! We can never forget that kids are natural mimics and will repeat and imitate things they see and hear. This means a lot of daytime TV and evening programming needs parental censorship. Even the evening news can be way too real and disturbing for kids.

Everything kids see is real to them. I still remember our kids in the Title One preschool class in Carthage the day after 9/11 happened. Obviously parents had watched the replays and coverage the whole evening before and those kids kept talking about “all those airplanes that had hit those buildings.” We quickly discovered that the kids had no concept of instant replay and, to them, there were dozens of planes hitting.

My best advice to parents is to really watch and monitor what is on, and have lots of time in your home where the TV is off. It is so important that kids be able to work puzzles and do pretend play WITHOUT the background noise of the TV. This is especially important when you think of how they need to practice quiet when they enter school.

Jane Drummond is a parent educator for the Carthage School District.